Vergne keeps the Techeetah charge going

Jean-Eric Vergne (FRA), DS Techeetah

Antonio Felix da Costa’s incredible run of results in Berlin have already secured him a gigantic 68-point lead in the standings, but in today’s qualifying session it was left to teammate Jean-Eric Vergne to defend Techeetah’s clean sweep of pole positions at the Tempelhof Circuit.

Qualifying began with da Costa, Lucas di Grassi, Mitch Evans, Stoffel Vandoorne, Sebastien Buemi and Sam Bird, and it was Vandoorne who struck first blood with an effort of 1:06:714 in a hectic session. da Costa was unable to get out ahead of Evans, while the pack became heavily bunched.

After da Costa, di Grassi, Buemi, Evans and finally Bird nestled into place behind Vandoorne, Group Two took place with Alex Sims, Andre Lotterer, Maxi Guenther, Oliver Rowland, Edoardo Mortara and Vergne. It was Techeetah’s reigning champion who topped the times, while Guenther, Lotterer and Rowland found space in the Superpole places.

Group Three’s session offered a major shock – already bumped down to fourth in Group Two, da Costa was displace out of Superpole contention by first Nyck de Vries, then Jerome d’Ambrosio and Robin Frijns while Felipe Massa, Jsmes Calado and Daniel Abt missed out.

Group Four offered one last surprise, with Alex Lynn making Mahindra wholly represented in the Superpole shootout with a time good enough for third, while Sergio Sette Camara qualified an impressive 11th and Rene Rast, Nico Mueller and Oliver Turvey finished a less appetising 21st, 22nd and 24th respectively.

Vergne prevailed in the Superpole shootout, bucking the trend of drivers failing to beat the initial time of 1:06:772 set by Guenther at the death by going half-a-tenth quicker to wrap up a dominant superpole, and maintain a clean sweep of pole positiions for Techeetah at the Tempelhof Circuit.

The order behind Vergne was Gunther, d’Ambrosio, Vandoorne, Lynn and Frijns, while Lotterer, de Vries, championship leader da Costa and Rowland made the top ten.

Image: Formula E Media