Mitch Evans has claimed his and Jaguar’s maiden Formula E pole position in qualifying for the Zurich E-Prix, as championship leader Jean-Eric Vergne had a “nightmare”.
The New Zealander, who had not been outside of the top two in either practice session, topped both normal qualifying and superpole.
His first effort put him nearly three tenths clear to get into the final session before setting a slower 1m12.811s to beat Andre Lotterer by 0.137 seconds.
Lotterer’s team-mate Vergne said in the post-lap interview after the first group of cars posted their attempts that he had a “nightmare lap”, and that he may even start last, before falling to 17th.
No damage has been had to Vergne’s 40-point championship lead, though, as Sam Bird qualified third after brushing the wall with the left-hand side of his DS Virgin machine at the chicane on his effort.
Both Dragon drivers Jerome d’Ambrosio and Jose Maria Lopez lost time in superpole compared to their opening laps to finish fourth and fifth.
Lopez dropped time in the first sector after narrowly missing the wall after a slide through the Turn 1 right-hander, while d’Ambrosio lost time in the final sector to his rivals above.
Lucas di Grassi narrowly missed out on the top five, and as a result, can no longer win this season’s championship after missing the three points for pole.
The Brazilian remains 86 points behind Vergne, but just 84 points remain in the campaign.
Sebastien Buemi was seventh above Renault e.dams team-mate Nico Prost.
Daniel Abt and Felix Rosenqvist completed the top 10.
NIO’s Oliver Turvey ended in 20th after making contact with the wall at Turn 2 with his right-rear tyre, stating that he had bent the trackrod in a post-lap interview.
| Pos. | Driver | Team | Time | Superpole Time |
| 1 | Mitch Evans | Jaguar | 1m12.594s | 1m12.811s |
| 2 | Andre Lotterer | Techeetah | 1m12.906s | 1m12.948s |
| 3 | Sam Bird | DS Virgin | 1m12.981s | 1m13.022s |
| 4 | Jerome d’Ambrosio | Dragon | 1m12.857s | 1m13.096s |
| 5 | Jose Maria Lopez | Dragon | 1m12.877s | 1m13.927s |
| 6 | Lucas di Grassi | Audi | 1m13.042s | |
| 7 | Sebastien Buemi | Renault e.dams | 1m13.061s | |
| 8 | Nico Prost | Renault e.dams | 1m13.084s | |
| 9 | Daniel Abt | Audi | 1m13.107s | |
| 10 | Felix Rosenqvist | Mahindra | 1m13.214s | |
| 11 | Nelson Piquet Jr | Jaguar | 1m13.380s | |
| 12 | Alex Lynn | DS Virgin | 1m13.393s | |
| 13 | Nick Heidfeld | Mahindra | 1m13.405s | |
| 14 | Edoardo Mortara | Venturi | 1m13.413s | |
| 15 | Antonio Felix da Costa | Andretti | 1m13.422s | |
| 16 | Stephane Sarrazin | Andretti | 1m13.500s | |
| 17 | Jean-Eric Vergne | Techeetah | 1m13.524s | |
| 18 | Maro Engel | Venturi | 1m13.541s | |
| 19 | Luca Filippi | NIO | 1m14.067s | |
| 20 | Oliver Turvey | NIO | 1m14.139s |
