Vergne takes Hong Kong pole with a spin
Jean-Eric Vergne claims the first pole position of the 2017-18 season with a spin across the line in his superpole lap.
The Frenchman, who was out in the penultimate qualifying group, finished the group stages third fastest, behind Nick Heidfeld and Sam Bird.
In the superpole shootout, his first two sectors were slower than those of Daniel Abt, who was on provisional pole, but a stunning sector three put him 0.156s ahead of the Audi driver. On the final corner of the lap, Vergne clipped the wall and spun over the timing line, but the mistake came so late in the lap it didn’t have an impact on his time.
Bird, who topped the group qualifying stage, couldn’t match the Techeetah driver’s time, finishing just three thousandths of a second behind Vergne.
Heidfeld will line up third, alongside Abt, and just ahead of Felix Rosenqvist, whose time was ruined by a small lock up early in his lap.
There was plenty of drama in the group stages, starting with Edoardo Mortara in group one.
The rookie clipped a wall in the final sector, damaging the rear of his Venturi and spinning the car around so the nose hit the wall too. He returned to the pits without setting a 200kW lap and leaving debris across the circuit. He finished the session 19th quickest.
Nico Prost in the final qualifying group recreated the incident almost exactly. Prost had hit the wall on entry to the corner and was pushed into the same spot Mortara collided with earlier. He tried to continue, trailing advertising banners behind him and failing to get out of the way of Jerome d’Ambrosio, who was also on a flying lap.
Prost put in the 18th fastest time.
Mitch Evans, at the bottom of the timings, failed to set a 200kW lap after missing the chequered flag to start his quick lap due to a team “miscalculation”. He won’t start from the very back of the grid, however. Neel Jani, who qualified 17th, has a 10 place grid penalty for changing the battery after a collision in free practice.
Lucas Di Grassi narrowly missed out on the superpole shoot out, finishing sixth fastest ahead of Oliver Turvey, Antonio Felix da Costa, and Nelson Piquet.