Mahindra Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist is a history-maker after becoming the first Formula E driver to take a pole position in the continent of Africa at the Marrakesh ePrix.
The Swedish driver beat Renault e.dams’ Sebastien Buemi, DS Virgin Racing’s Sam Bird and NextEV’s Nelson Piquet to lead the session with just one driver to set a lap, but drama struck as Techeetah’s Jean-Eric Vergne, the fastest driver of the qualifying session, failed to exit the pit lane in time before it was closed.
It is his first pole position of his Formula E career in only his second race and during his first appearance in the super pole stage of qualifying. He also becomes the first Scandinavian driver to take a pole in the series. Drivers’ Championship leader Buemi joins him on the front row of the grid.
GROUP ONE
As qualifying got underway, the first group of five cars consisted of Dragon Racing’s Jerome d’Ambrosio, MS Amlin Andretti’s Antonio Felix da Costa, DS Virgin’s Jose Maria Lopez, Techeetah’s Ma Qing Hua, and Renault e.dams’ Nicolas Prost.
D’Ambrosio led after the initial lap on the track with a time of 1m26.324s before Ma Qing Hua took over the lead, going three seconds faster with a 1m23.248s.
On their final laps on track, d’Ambrosio could only set a time of 1m22.681s, which was usurped by Lopez (1m22.133s), Felix da Costa (1m22.073s), and Prost (1m21.777s). Ma did not complete a second lap, pitting at the end of his second tour of the track.
GROUP TWO
Renault e.dams’ Sebastien Buemi, Jaguar Racing’s Mitch Evans, Mahindra Racing’s Nick Heidfeld, Venturi’s Stephane Sarrazin, and NextEV’s Oliver Turvey then came out of the pits as the second group of cars in the session.
Heidfeld initially went up to third with his first lap with the other four drivers at the bottom of the order.
Buemi then lit the timing screens in purple in his final 200kW lap with a time of 1m21.350s to usurp his teammate at the top. NextEV’s Oliver Turvey continued their decent qualifying form in season three to set a lap good enough for third out of the opening ten racers, a 1m21.853s.
Heidfeld sneaked into the top five with a 1m22.074s, with Sarrazin and Evans going seventh and eighth, 0.9s and 1.0s behind Buemi.
GROUP THREE
Both ABT Schaeffler Audi drivers, Daniel Abt and Lucas di Grassi, had the chance to respond to the initial dominance of the Renault e.dams drivers when they went out in group three. They were joined by Dragon Racing’s Loic Duval, Venturi’s Maro Engel, and Techeetah’s Jean-Eric Vergne.
The two ABTs were slower throughout their fastest lap with Di Grassi only able to set a time of 1m22.081s that gave him sixth place before falling down to eighth after every driver set a time. It means that di Grassi is still yet to finish his qualifying session in the top five in season three.
Abt, however, set a 1m21.725s to go into the top five in second, which later became third after Vergne set a scintillating 1m20.993s lap to snatch the overall lead away from Buemi.
Engel and Duval’s laps were only good enough for tenth and 15th after the first 15 drivers entered a time on the board.
GROUP FOUR
DS Virgin’s Sam Bird, Jaguar’s Adam Carroll, Andretti’s Robin Frijns, NextEV’s Nelson Piquet Jr. and Mahindra’s Felix Rosenqvist were the final drivers let out onto the track to set their initial fastest laps.
Rosenqvist set a purple time in the first sector, sliding his car aggressively around the track on his quest to find lap time, setting a 1m21.175s for second place.
Bird and Piquet Jr. joined the Swede in super pole with lap times of 1m21.392s and 1m21.651s respectively for fourth and fifth. This dumped Abt and Prost out of the session.
Frijns finished ninth, while Carroll was last of everyone after losing four seconds in the first sector following locking up and going off track at Turn 1.
SUPER POLE
Piquet Jr. was the first to start his super pole lap, aggressively going through the track clattering the kerb going into turn four and locking up his tyres on more than one occasion. He later apologised over his team radio for pushing too hard on his lap after setting a time of 1m23.879s.
Bird was much faster than the Brazilian on his lap, going 2.1s faster with a 1m21.686, almost three tenths slower than his previous best. “Wasn’t a very good lap,” Bird said over his radio, after asking to know the time of his NextEV rival.
Buemi found two tenths in the second sector of his final effort of qualifying on his way to setting a 1m21.546s, narrowly faster than the Brit. After being almost two tenths faster overall through the first and sector sectors, Rosenqvist usurped the other drivers and guaranteed a front row start with a time of 1m21.509s.
As people waited to see Vergne go out on track to challenge his time, the Frenchman quickly had his head down in the cockpit after the pit exit closed after he missed the pit exit time of 30 seconds.
The result gave Rosenqvist the pole position and three points for his championship total. He moves up to ninth in the standings on four points.
