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Evans takes pole in Santiago

Mitch Evans claimed his second career Formula E pole in an incredibly close qualifying for the Santiago E-Prix.

In a Super Pole session that featured the NIO of Oliver Turvey, Evans was the final driver to set a lap.

Despite initially looking like Maximilian Gunther might have left the pit lane under a red light, the Dragon driver was on provisional pole when Evans began his final flying lap.

Evans managed to set a time 0.275s quicker than Gunther, his 1m04.827s lap even faster than he managed in the qualifying stages.

Gunther lines up second ahead of Pascal Wehrlein and Felipe Massa. Wehrlein and Massa set completely identical lap times but, as Wehrlein was out first in the Super Pole session, the Mahindra driver starts third.

Oliver Turvey managed an incredible feat when he put his NIO car in the top five in the group stages. With team-mate Ma Quin Hua ruled out of qualifying by a crash in FP2, the Brit was the lone NIO driver running in the session, heading out in group four.

On a track with high evolution, group four held the advantage in qualifying, with three of the six drivers in Super Pole coming from the group.

He managed a 1m05.510s in the group stages, just half a second slower than Evans’ time and enough to put him fifth overall.

Turvey ended the session fifth quickest, ahead of Sebastien Buemi, who struggled with grip in the final sector.

Outside the Super Pole, Edoardo Mortara put in a stand out performance to qualifying seventh. The Venturi driver had been running close behind Robin Frijns on track when Frijns span out over the run off. Mortara was forced to slam onto the brakes to avoid Frijns when the Virgin driver returned to the track, but he still managed to put himself top of the order, only to be knocked down when the next two groups qualified.

He wasn’t the only driver to be held up by accidents ahead. Audi’s Lucas Di Grassi was forced to slow when Oliver Rowland collided with the wall in the first group. Di Grassi managed to continue despite the debris but ran wide himself, losing significant time and resulting in his qualifying last.

Nyck de Vries took eighth ahead of Stoffel Vandoorne, the fastest driver in group one, and Antonio Felix Da Costa.

Jean-Eric Vergne completed the top 10.

Bethonie Waring

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