Jean-Eric Vergne took his 17th FIA Formula E pole position ahead of this afternoon’s Portland E-Prix.
The Frenchman used the continuing brilliance of his DS Penske’s one-lap pace to set a time of 1:07.778s to secure top spot ahead of Race 1 winner Antonio Felix da Costa.
Sam Bird was another star of the show, qualifying third with Robin Frijns fourth for Envision, ahead of Jake Hughes.
Nick Cassidy, desperate to bounce back from his late mistake on Saturday, qualified sixth, one place ahead of title rival Pascal Wehrlein.
Nyck de Vries gave a strong showing in his Mahindra, qualifying eighth with Jehan Daruvala ninth, and Stoffel Vandoorne tenth.
HOW QUALIFYING UNFOLDED
GROUPS
In Group A, Saturday’s polesitter Mitch Evans was knocked-out, with Frijns going fastest with a time of 1:09.665s. Vergne was eight one hundredths behind in second with Cassidy third and Hughes fourth. Both the Maseratis of Max Günther and Jehan Daruvala were also eliminated, with the ABT Cupra pair of Nico Müller and Lucas di Grassi, both so strong on Saturday, following them, along with Sébastien Buemi and Dan Ticktum.
Race 1’s winner da Costa topped Group B with a 1:09.726, six one hundredths ahead of Bird, with de Vries third and Wehrlein fourth, the Porsche man just scraping through, capitalising on an error by Jake Dennis on his final run, condemning him to another poor qualifying result. Stoffel Vandoorne, Sacha Fenestraz, Sérgio Sette Câmara, Norman Nato and Caio Collet were the others to miss out.
DUELS
The first duel saw Cassidy come up against Vergne, and a mistake at T7 from the Kiwi saw Vergne take his place in the semi-finals, despite a big slide at the exit of the final turn.
In Hughes against Frijns, the Envision man continued his good form over the weekend, beating the McLaren driver by 0.014s.
Bird, coming in off the back of a good performance in Race 1, got himself into the next head-to-heads with a time nearly two tenths quicker than de Vries.
In an all-Porsche duel between da Costa and Wehrlein, the Portuguese sailed through with a gap of three tenths on his title-chasing counterpart.
SEMI-FINALS
The first semi, Vergne capitalised on another T7 mistake, this time from Frijns, to qualify for the final.
In the second, da Costa pipped Bird to set himself up for a guaranteed spot on the front row of the grid for the race.
FINAL
Vergne would see his brilliant showing go through the whole way, taking pole from da Costa by two one hundredths to set-up a tantalising race 2.
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