Jean-Eric Vergne storms to Paris ePrix pole

Jean-Eric Vergne claimed a fourth pole position of Season Four for Techeetah in a clean and clinical performance in qualifying for the Paris ePrix.

As the current championship leader, Vergne completed his initial qualifying run in the first group of qualifiers, setting a best lap time of a 1m 01.508s.

Despite Group 1 qualifying typically seeing the slowest times of the session being set, no one was able to match Vergne for the top spot, meaning that the Frenchman bagged a place in the Super Pole shootout in front of his home crowd. 

While Vergne was securely inside the top five with the fastest lap time of the session, the former Toro Rosso man was accompanied by Andretti's Antonio Felix da Costa, Venturi's Maro Engel, championship rival Sam Bird and his Techeetah team-mate Andre Lotterer in Super Pole.

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As the slowest of the top five drivers in initial qualifying, Lotterer opened proceedings in Super Pole, setting a convincing lap time of 1m 01.487s to claim provisional pole and lay down a benchmark time for his rivals.

Lotterer's position in the top spot was short-lived, however, with Bird beating the time with a 1m 01.421s lap. Slow laps for Engel and da Costa meant that Vergne was the only man standing between Bird and pole position along with three bonus points to close the gap at the top of the Drivers' Championship.

A calm, calculated and ultimately fast final flying 200kW lap for Vergne saw the Frenchman beat Bird's best time by an incredible 0.277s, handing him pole position for the Paris ePrix as he looks to secure redemption for Season Three's French round which saw him crash out of second place and a potential race win following a suspension failure.

Lining up alongside Vergne on the grid will be Bird in second while Lotterer qualified in third in the second Techeetah. Maro Engel emerged as the fourth fastest driver in Super Pole and as such, will start from the second row of the grid – a performance that marks his highest Formula E qualifying position to date. Da Costa completed the top five.

Outside of the top five, reigning champion Lucas di Grassi qualified in sixth for Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler while Jerome d'Ambrosio put in an impressive performance to qualify in seventh place for Jay Penske's Dragon Racing.

Season Two champion Sebastien Buemi qualified in eighth place for Renault e.dams while Oliver Turvey qualified in ninth for NIO. Jose Maria Lopez completed the top 10 in the second Dragon car.

It was a disappointing qualifying session for Mahindra Racing, with title contender Felix Rosenqvist and Nick Heidfeld only managing 11th and 12th on the grid while Nico Prost put on a poor showing of performance in the second Renault, only managing 13th on the grid on home turf.

A 14th place qualifying result for Mitch Evans ensures that the Kiwi will start from the back of the grid for Jaguar Racing following the application of a 10-place grid penalty, courtesy of a gearbox change. On the other side of the garage, it was also a tough session for Nelson Piquet Jr, with the former champion being unable to contest qualifying after crashing both of his cars in first and second practice.