Antonio Felix da Costa secured pole position for the Marrakesh E-Prix – his first for reigning Teams’ Champions DS Techeetah.
Placed third in the Drivers’ Standings, the Portuguese racer completed his initial qualifying run in Group 1 and maintained his position in the top six through the final three groups.
While it was BMW i Andretti Motorsport’s Maximilian Gunther who posted the fastest group time – and therefore recording one bonus point – the German was joined by Andre Lotterer, Edoardo Mortara, da Costa, Nyck de Vries and Sebastien Buemi.
As the slowest of the top six, Buemi laid down the benchmark time, however, the Swiss was quickly beaten by Mercedes’ de Vries.
Da Costa beat de Vries’ best lap by 0.432s and when Mortara and Lotterer failed to challenge, Gunther stood as the final driver between DS Techeetah and pole position.
Matching da Costa in Sector 1 before setting the fastest Sector 2, Gunther fell 0.069s short of da Costa’s 1m 17.158s lap, taking second overall.
With da Costa on pole, Lotterer was third, with de Vries, Mortara and Buemi following to complete the top siz.
Outside of the top six Jerome d’Ambrosio was the lead Mahindra Racing driver, narrowly missing out on a spot in Super Pole by only 0.236s while former championship leader Alexander Sims was eighth in the second BMW.
Oliver Rowland failed to match the pace of team-mate Buemi, delivering Nissan e.dams with ninth while James Calado completed the top 10, recording his best qualifying performance in Formula E and fronting Jaguar Racing’s Marrakesh goals after Mitch Evans failed to complete a lap, taking the chequered flag ahead of his 250kW run.
Reigning champion Jean-Eric Vergne managed 11th in the second DS Techeetah despite missing shakedown and FP1 while Lucas di Grassi was the lead Audi driver in 13th.
Robin Frijns fronted Envision Virgin Racing’s efforts, securing a 13-14 result for the British outfit despite hitting the wall, outpacing team-mate Sam Bird by 0.017s.
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