Subscribe

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Rome Formula E: DS's Lotterer grabs maiden pole on drying track

DS Techeetah driver Andre Lotterer claimed his maiden ABB Formula E pole position with a dramatic final effort to top a rain-effected qualifying session for the Rome E-Prix

But the leading 2018/19 championship contenders will start Saturday afternoon's race - the second to be held in the Italian capital - well down the order.

Lotterer had gone fastest in the group running, but wet weather arrived ahead of the superpole session, with the second sector and the run down to the Turn 13 hairpin particularly slippery.

The reversed-order nature of the superpole session meant Sebastien Buemi and Maxmililan Gunther endured the toughest running, and both went off at the hairpin on their sighting laps.

Buemi wound up six for Nissan e.dams, with Gunther (Dragon) claiming the best start of his four-race FE career to date with fifth.

The track began to dry significantly from there on, and Stoffel Vandoorne's committed efforts - particularly at the 90-degree lefts of Turns 5 and 6 at the bottom of the circuit's hill - put him well clear of Gunther and Buemi.

But he was shuffled down to fourth, first by Dragon's Jose Maria Lopez and then Mitch Evans, with that pair both finding significant time as their flying laps went on.

It looked as if Lotterer would easily surf the conditions to go better still, especially as he went 0.1 seconds faster than Evans in the first sector.

But a major slide at the hairpin made it look as though he had thrown it all away, before he charged back through the final sector to take a breathtaking pole by 0.36s with a 1m32.123s lap.

Behind the top six, Venturi's Edoardo Mortara will start seventh after he was shuffled out of superpole contention by late flying laps from the Dragon drivers in group four, with the same fate befalling Robin Frijns, who ended up eighth.

New Jaguar recruit Alex Lynn qualified ninth on his FE return, which matched the best grid spot Nelson Piquet Jr had achieved in that car over the first six races of the season.

But Lynn will start the race from 21st, after having his best time deleted for going over the 250kW maximum power limit on his flying lap.

At one point his car was recored at 263.61kW, which triggered the penalty. Wehrlein will also start further down the order, from 14th, for speeding under the red flag.

Pascal Wehrlein rounded out the top 10 for Mahindra Racing ahead of Felipe Massa and Oliver Rowland, who clipped the wall at the exit of the downhill Turn 2 left-hander on his group three run.

Championship leader Antonio Felix da Costa ended up 13th after topping group one ahead of Sam Bird and Lucas di Grassi, who will start immediately behind the BMW Andretti driver on the grid.

Gary Paffett slotted into 16th with his run in group four, which pushed Sanya race winner and reigning champion Jean-Eric Vergne down to 17th.

Daniel Abt and Oliver Turvey set the same time in groups two and three respectively, with the Audi driver doing so first and therefore taking P18.

Jerome D'Ambrosio qualified in 20th as the slowest group-one runner, with Tom Dillmann taking 21st for NIO.

Alexander Sims did not set a representative lap in the opening phase as his BMW powered car appeared to lose drive just after he had run over the jump in the track on the uphill run to Turn 9.

He pulled over a few corners later and caused a red flag, which allowed his fellow group three runners - Evans, Rowland, Buemi, Massa and Turvey - to have another go in that segment.

Sims has been give permission to start the race from P22.

For the seventh race in a row, the required attack mode usage will be two periods lasting four minutes each time.

Qualifying result

Pos Driver Team Car Gap
1 Andre Lotterer DS Techeetah DS 1m29.761s
2 Mitch Evans Jaguar Jaguar 0.181s
3 Jose Maria Lopez Dragon Penske 0.338s
4 Stoffel Vandoorne HWA Venturi 0.446s
5 Maximilian Guenther Dragon Penske 0.516s
6 Sebastien Buemi e.dams Nissan 0.580s
7 Edoardo Mortara Venturi Venturi 0.636s
8 Robin Frijns Virgin Audi 0.661s
9 Pascal Wehrlein Mahindra Mahindra 0.848s
10 Felipe Massa Venturi Venturi 0.862s
11 Oliver Rowland e.dams Nissan 0.962s
12 Antonio Felix da Costa BMW BMW 1.043s
13 Sam Bird Virgin Audi 1.119s
14 Lucas di Grassi Audi Audi 1.216s
15 Gary Paffett HWA Venturi 1.219s
16 Jean-Eric Vergne DS Techeetah DS 1.255s
17 Daniel Abt Audi Audi 1.282s
18 Oliver Turvey NIO NIO 1.282s
19 Jerome d'Ambrosio Mahindra Mahindra 1.431s
20 Tom Dillmann NIO NIO 1.459s
- Alex Lynn Jaguar Jaguar 9.896s
- Alexander Sims BMW BMW 16.421s


Be part of the Autosport community

Join the conversation
Previous article Rome Formula E: Jean-Eric Vergne leads messy practice sessions
Next article The Formula E team - and driver - resetting in Rome

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe