Felix Rosenqvist grabbed pole position for the second Hong Kong ePrix of the weekend and the second round of the 2017/18 Formula E championship.
The Swede had a scrappy final sector on his super pole lap, but it was enough to grab his fourth pole position in his FE career.
It was the first qualifying session in the history of FE that didn’t use randomised driver groups. The rules were changed so that drivers would be in the same group as others nearby them in the drivers’ championship. Each group of five drivers were then randomly assigned a number to decide the running order.
Sam Bird had a 10 place grid penalty due to an incident in the pits during the opening race of the season on Saturday, and he will start 14th for DS Virgin Racing after being fourth quickest in super pole.
Out of all the drivers to finish in the top five on Saturday, only Bird and Daniel Abt were able to make it into the qualifying group. Yesterday’s pole position holder Jean-Eric Vergne was only quick enough to put himself seventh on the grid for the race, while Nick Heidfeld and Nelson Piquet Jr will start 10th and 11th respectively.
Mitch Evans didn’t put a time in qualifying yesterday after a mistake from the Jaguar team, but will start from the front row of the grid after putting in an impressive lap. It was Jaguar’s first time in super pole group.
In his first race weekend in FE, Edoardo Mortara was able to make it into super pole and then go quick enough to start third. Mortara is used to racing on street circuits having picked up his seventh win in Macau two weeks ago.
Alex Lynn just missed out on the top five, but due to his team-mate Bird’s penalty will be promoted to fifth position for the start of the race.
Andretti FE look strong with Antonio Felix da Costa starting sixth. Kamui Kobayasi qualified 16th ahead of season two drivers’ champion Sebastien Buemi in what is his first weekend driving in the series.
NIO have the chance to score points with both drivers with Oliver Turvey and rookie Luca Filippi qualifying in ninth and tenth respectively, which turns into eighth and ninth.
Defending champion Lucas di Grassi will only start 12th although ahead of his rival in the last two seasons Buemi. Both drivers failed to score points in the opening race of the weekend.
