Felix Rosenqvist took pole position for the Mexico City ePrix, cutting the championship between him and Jean-Eric Vergne down to just two points.
The Mahindra driver was just over two-tenths of a second slower than Andretti’s Antonio Felix da Costa, who took part in his first superpole session since the second season of Formula E.
Lucas di Grassi was handed another 10-place grid penalty before the start of the day, and will start at the back of the grid after finishing qualifying in the bottom half of the standings. He will now also have to serve a 10-second time penalty during the race.
Alex Lynn was the third quickest driver in the superpole group, but the Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler driver also gained a 10-place grid penalty like Di Grassi, and will start the race in 13th.
Lynn’s qualifying lap in the third group knocked team-mate Sam Bird out of the top five. Bird said after his lap that he had more issues with his suspension which affected his qualifying lap.
Renault e.dams’ Sebastien Buemi was the slowest of the five drivers in superpole, but will move up to fourth. He will start alongside NIO’s Oliver Turvey on the second row of the grid, with Turvey over half a second slower than Rosenqvist’s pole position lap.
Buemi’s team-mate Nico Prost was only able to finish 17th during the first part of qualifying, with only Andretti’s Tom Blomqvist, NIO’s Luca Filippi and Venturi’s Edoardo Mortara finishing lower.
Blomqvist, who was on group one for qualifying, put two wheels onto the grass when exiting Turn 1 during his fast lap, but was able to keep it out of the wall.
Daniel Abt was the closest to getting into the top five out of the drivers who didn’t get into the superpole group, with his 1m01.885s lap under one-tenth quicker than drivers’ championship leader Vergne, who finished his qualifying in seventh.
Jaguar’s Nelson Piquet Jr, Bird and Rosenqvist’s team-mate at Mahindra Nick Heidfeld rounded off the top ten times during qualifying.
