Bethonie WaringJean-Eric Vergne claimed pole position for the Bern E-Prix as title rival Lucas Di Grassi suffered in the first group of qualifying.
Both championship contenders were out in the first qualifying group, with Vergne not far behind Di Grassi on track.
The DS Techeetah driver topped the group, ahead of team-mate Andre Lotterer and Robin Frijns, who only just made it to the line in time to start his full power lap before the chequered flag. Di Grassi and BMW’s Antonio Felix Da Costa struggled in the group stages, neither driver setting a time quicker than 1m20s.
Mitch Evans, running in the second qualifying group, was the only man to go faster than Vergne. He ended the group stages with a 1m18.897s lap.
Despite track conditions improving throughout the session – and drivers believing an early qualifying group would put them at a disadvantage – Gunther was the only driver from the final qualifying group to make it through to the Super Pole shoot out.
Sebastien Buemi, Pascal Wehrlein, and Sam Bird also made it through to the final stage of qualifying.
With only Vergne and Evans left to run, Buemi was on provisional pole, just 0.004s clear of Wehrlein in second.
Vergne lowered the benchmark again, becoming the only driver to set a lap quicker than 1m19s when he set a 1m18.813s, 0.351s clear of Buemi.
Evans closed the gap to Vergne, but was still 0.307s slower than the championship leader.
Behind the top three, Wehrlein took fourth, ahead of Guenther and Bird.
Daniel Abt was the quickest driver to miss out on Super Pole, lining up seventh for this afternoon’s race. He starts ahead of Andre Lotterer and Frijns.
Alex Lynn rounded out the top 10.
