Stoffel Vandoorne took pole position for Saturday’s Rome E-Prix, with the Mercedes-EQ driver beating Envision’s Robin Frijns in the final to take the top spot on the grid.
The Belgian set a 1:39.151, 0.349 faster than Frijns in the final head-to-head round.
The eight drivers who made it through the group stages were Jake Dennis for Andretti, Frijns, Vandoorne, and Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein in the first group. In the second group, DS Techeetah’s Antonio Felix da Costa and teammate Jean-Eric Vergne, Andre Lotterer for Porsche, and Mercedes’ Nyck de Vries, made it through.
Into the quarter finals, de Vries beat out Dennis to set the initial pace for the top eight. Frijns then beat Lotterer by over seven tenths, with Vandoorne knocking Vergne out in the third quarter.
And in the final quarter final duel, da Costa beat Wehrlein, meaning the two Mercedes’, an Envision, and a DS Techeetah were through to the semis. Unusually for Formula E,none of the quarters were particularly close, with the closest margin in any of the four being 0.308, between de Vries and Dennis, with the duel going into de Vries’ favour.
This trend, though, didn’t continue in the semi final duels, with each being considerably closer than the quarters. Frijns knocked de Vries out with a margin of 0.113, with there was just 0.015 between Vandoorne and Da Costa, with the former winning a spot in the final.
Vandoorne then beat Frijns in the final duel, giving the Belgian his second pole of the season, and Mercedes-Eq’s third after the Diriyah E-Prix pole position double.
The race begins at 13:00 GMT.
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