Evans beats Wehrlein to bag Monaco Formula E pole
Mitch Evans saw off Pascal Wehrlein to claim his first Formula E pole in over two years for Saturday’s Monaco E-Prix
Mitch Evans continued his superb run of Formula E form with a commanding Monaco E-Prix qualifying performance that gave Jaguar its first pole position of the 2022 season.
Having dismissed Lucas di Grassi’s Venturi Mercedes in the quarter-final duels and championship leader Jean-Eric Vergne’s DS Techeetah in the semi-final, Evans went up against Porsche driver Pascal Wehrlein in the qualifying final.
And Evans – a double winner in Rome last time out – simply extended his gap over Wehrlein for the majority of the lap, taking pole by just over a quarter of a second.
Wehrlein, Vergne and leading Mercedes runner Stoffel Vandoorne complete the top four.
Di Grassi starts fifth alongside Andre Lotterer, who lost a quarter-final duel to Porsche team-mate Wehrlein.
Robin Frijns of Envision and reigning champion Nyck de Vries (Mercedes) fill row four, having lost in the quarter-finals to Vandoorne and Vergne respectively.
Both group qualifying sessions ended with traffic congestion as everyone flooded onto the track for last-minute laps.
Nick Cassidy and Jake Dennis both had offs at Ste Devote during the scrambles in their groups, leaving them 18th and 15th on the grid respectively.
Sam Bird was just 0.013s off a duels spot and also has a grid penalty for a Rome collision, meaning he’ll start 13th in the second Jaguar.
Last year’s Monaco winner Antonio Felix da Costa and Edoardo Mortara were the other regular frontrunners who didn’t reach the duel stages, da Costa ending up 10th for DS Techeetah and Mortara only qualifying his Venturi Mercedes 16th.
Nissan’s practice promise didn’t turn into anything of note in qualifying again: Maximilian Guenther was down in 11th and double Monaco FE winner Sebastien Buemi was slowest in all in group A, leaving him last of all behind Oliver Turvey on the final row.
Turvey’s NIO 333 team-mate Dan Ticktum was one of the stars of qualifying, though. He qualified an FE career-best 14th.
Qualifying Results
| Pos | Name | Team | Car | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mitch Evans | Jaguar TCS Racing | Jaguar I-TYPE 5 | 1m31.245s | 1m30.053s | 1m30.001s | 1m29.839s |
| 2 | Pascal Wehrlein | TAG Heuer Porsche | Porsche 99X Electric | 1m31.411s | 1m30.098s | 1m30.065s | 1m30.096s |
| 3 | Jean-Eric Vergne | DS Techeetah | DS E-Tense FE21 | 1m31.533s | 1m30.421s | 1m30.118s | |
| 4 | Stoffel Vandoorne | Mercedes-Benz EQ | Mercedes-EQ Silver Arrow 02 | 1m31.326s | 1m30.293s | 1m30.243s | |
| 5 | Lucas Di Grassi | RokIt Venturi Racing | Mercedes-EQ Silver Arrow 02 | 1m31.681s | 1m30.338s | ||
| 6 | André Lotterer | TAG Heuer Porsche | Porsche 99X Electric | 1m31.313s | 1m30.366s | ||
| 7 | Robin Frijns | Envision Racing | Audi e-tron FE07 | 1m31.405s | 1m30.451s | ||
| 8 | Nyck de Vries | Mercedes-Benz EQ | Mercedes-EQ Silver Arrow 02 | 1m31.271s | 1m30.938s | ||
| 9 | Oliver Rowland | Mahindra Racing | Mahindra M7Electro | 1m31.499s | |||
| 10 | António Félix da Costa | DS Techeetah | DS E-Tense FE21 | 1m31.51s | |||
| 11 | Maximilian Günther | Nissan e.Dams | Nissan IM03 | 1m31.899s | |||
| 12 | Oliver Askew | Avalanche Andretti | BMW iFE.021 | 1m31.614s | |||
| 13 | Sam Bird | Jaguar TCS Racing | Jaguar I-TYPE 5 | 1m31.694s | |||
| 14 | Daniel Ticktum | Nio 333 Racing | NIO 333 001 | 1m31.931s | |||
| 15 | Jake Dennis | Avalanche Andretti | BMW iFE.021 | 1m31.83s | |||
| 16 | Edoardo Mortara | RokIt Venturi Racing | Mercedes-EQ Silver Arrow 02 | 1m31.975s | |||
| 17 | Alexander Sims | Mahindra Racing | Mahindra M7Electro | 1m31.933s | |||
| 18 | Nick Cassidy | Envision Racing | Audi e-tron FE07 | 1m32.009s | |||
| 19 | Antonio Giovinazzi | Dragon / Penske Autosport | Penske EV-5 | 1m32.091s | |||
| 20 | Sérgio Sette Câmara | Dragon / Penske Autosport | Penske EV-5 | 1m32.137s | |||
| 21 | Oliver Turvey | Nio 333 Racing | NIO 333 001 | 1m32.497s | |||
| 22 | Sébastien Buemi | Nissan e.Dams | Nissan IM03 | 1m32.185s |
