Reigning FIA Formula E World Champion Jake Dennis has taken his first pole position of the season ahead of today’s second race of the Berlin E-Prix double-header weekend.
Season 10 has been a miserable one in terms of qualifying performance for Dennis, with Saturday no exception, but the Andretti got everything hooked-up to see the Englishman grab pole, with everything all to play for in the race.
Jaguar TCS Racing’s Nick Cassidy, fresh from his win in the first race, completes the front row of the grid, with the second Andretti of Norman Nato third. The second Jaguar of Mitch Evans will line-up fourth, with Stoffel Vandoorne fifth, and Max Günther sixth.
Pascal Wehrlein will start seventh, with Saturday’s pole-sitter Edoardo Mortara eighth. The second DS Penske of Jean-Eric Vergne will start in ninth, with Antonio Felix da Costa in contention with tenth spot.
HOW QUALIFYING UNFOLDED
GROUP A
Cassidy brought his Saturday form into the group stage, topping it with a 1:02.544s lap, just under a tenth ahead of Günther, with Evans third and Mortara again showing good one-lap pace with fourth, both men setting an identical lap time. Antonio Felix da Costa and Oliver Rowland were the big casualties in fifth and eighth, the Portuguese missing-out by just six hundredths of a second.
GROUP B
After a string of poor qualifying results – much to the chagrin of reigning champion Dennis – both Andrettis made it through from the group, with first and second, with Dennis four hundredths ahead of Nato. Vandoorne was third with Wehrlein fourth. Jean-Éric Vergne would miss-out, with Taylor Barnard three tenths short of making the duels stage.
DUELS
First out were Evans and Günther, and with neither driver completing a particularly tidy lap, it would be Evans who was the fastest, sneaking through by a tenth of a second.
Duel two was perhaps the most intriguing on paper, with Saturday pole-sitter Mortara against Saturday winner Cassidy. The Swiss could not quite match the brilliance showed on that occasion, falling short of Cassidy’s time by two tenths of a second.
The third was between Vandoorne, more of a regular in the duels in recent months compared to Nato, making his first appearance in one since Diriyah early in the season, but the Frenchman kept the group stage momentum for Andretti going, sneaking through by less than a tenth on the Belgian.
In an all-Porsche powertrain battle between Wehrlein and Dennis, the second Andretti made it through in an amazing turnaround, with a 1:02.049, a tenth up on Wehrlein’s lap time, which in comparison was a scrappy lap, brushing the wall at turn two.
SEMI-FINALS
In the first of two inter-team semi-final duals, Evans and Cassidy would battle for Jaguar supremacy on the grid. Cassidy’s neater lap would see him through, a tenth ahead of his countryman and team-mate.
In the all-Andretti duel Nato looked in position to claim his first final spot of the year, but a mistake in the middle of his lap would see Dennis make it through to the final by just two one hundredths of a second.
FINAL
Cassidy’s first sector looked good, but a poor second sector would leave him on the backfoot, and despite an untidy final sector, Dennis took pole by two tenths of a second, earning him important points for his title defence, and with the prospect of further success in the race.
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