Jean-Eric Vergne took pole for Sunday’s Rome E-Prix race 2, setting a 1:38.268, with the DS Techeetah driver and former double champion beating out Andretti’s Jake Dennis in the final ‘duel’.
Vergne was slowest in his initial group stage, being beaten by Mitch Evans, Pascal Wehrlein, and Stoffel Vandoorne. However, he had enough pace in reserve to take pole.
In the other group, Robin Frijns, Andre Lotterer, Jake Dennis and Sam Bird got through to the duels, with Jaguar in particular delighted to have two drivers in the top eight.
Vergne then beat Envision’s Frijns in the first quarter final, by less than a tenth of a second. Lotterer, driving for Porsche, beat Mercedes’ Vandoorne by over three tenths, with the Belgian complaining his tyres were too hot and therefore out of their operating window.
Dennis and Wehrlein were next up, with the Andretti driver setting one of the fastest laps of the weekend around the Rome circuit, a 1:38.225, to go through to the semis. Porsche’s Wehrlein simply couldn’t match this, two and a bit tenths off the rapid Dennis.
The Jaguars were matched up in the final quarter, Evans against Bird. As it was, Evans not only beat Bird, but beat Dennis’s time set just minutes ago, with a 1:38.127. While Bird was eliminated, he was the fastest ‘loser’, which meant he’d start fifth on the grid and professed to be happy with his lap.
Vergne then beat Lotterer to book his spot in the final, with a 1:38.149 — his personal fastest lap of the weekend.
Dennis, though, smashed this in his semi. The Brit set a 1:37.997, the first driver to go into the 1:37s all weekend. And he managed this by making a mistake at turn 16, brushing the wall and losing a few hundredths.
This put Vergne and Dennis against each other in the final, but despite his mega lap earlier, Dennis couldn’t repeat the performance, ending up over two tenths away from Vergne’s pole position lap.
The race begins at 13:00 GMT.
