Evans tops qualifying, Cassidy starts from pole

Nick Cassidy to start on pole for the penultimate race of the 2022-23 Formula E season. 

Mitch Evans beat Cassidy in the final duel, but a five place grid penalty for the Jaguar driver puts Cassidy on pole for the first race in London. 

Championship leader Jake Dennis will start alongside him in P2. 

Group Stages

Dennis topped the first group with a time of 1m10.873s. It was far from a simple session for the Andretti driver, as he claimed to have had a huge powercut at turn nine early in the session. The team were able to get him back out again and Dennis continued to improve on the pace-setting time he had put in early in the session. 

A brush against the wall on his penultimate lap seemed to do nothing to hinder his pace, as he improved on the next lap to beat Mitch Evans’ quickest time by 0.030s.  

Stoffel Vandoorne and Rene Rast also made it through to the duel stages, while Sam Bird missed out by less than a tenth of a second. 

It was Sebastien Buemi who set the pace early in Group B, while a wide moment for Cassidy ruined the Envision driver’s second flying lap. 

Cassidy was able to improve, however, lowering the benchmark to 1m10.721s by the chequered flag. Buemi finished second, making Envision the only team with two drivers in the duels. 

Dan Ticktum was just 0.372s behind Cassidy in P3, with Pascal Wehrlein a further 0.055s off. 

Duels

Cassidy went head to head with Wehrlein in the first duel, beating the Porsche driver by more than half a second. He then faced team-mate Buemi in the semi-finals. Buemi ran wide on his qualifying run, allowing Cassidy to sweep through to the finals. 

Meanwhile, Evans had beaten Vandoorne in the quarter-finals and faced championship leader Dennis in the semis. Evans beat Dennis by just 0.376s to deny the championship leader a chance at pole. 

Evans and Cassidy were evenly matched throughout the final shoot-out, but it was Evans who just had he edge by 0.026s.  

Evans will not start on pole, but by topping qualifying he takes three valuable points in the championship fight. 

Instead, Cassidy will start from P1 ahead of Dennis, Buemi and Ticktum, who was the quickest of those knocked out in the quarter-finals. Rast is the final driver to benefit from Evans’ penalty, starting alongside the Jaguar driver in P5. 

Wehrlein starts seventh ahead of Vandoorne, Bird and Norman Nato.