Andrea PerilliAntonio Felix da Costa set a flying Super Pole lap to become Monaco E-Prix’s poleman on a session not short of drama and red flags.
Da Costa was fastest in his qualifying group, but it was only enough to go third fastest overall, behind Mitch Evans and Robin Frijns, who were both out in the first qualifying group.
Maximilian Guenther, Jean-Eric Vergne, and Oliver Rowland also made it through to Super Pole, but a timing issue for the Nissan driver meat his lap-time wouldn’t be allowed. Rowland left the pitlane just as the lights turned red, and his lap time was deleted.
Vergne managed a 1m31.376s time, momentarily putting him P1 ahead of Guenther, who brushed the wall on his lap.
Da Costa, out fourth in the session, was able to jump past his team-mate with a 1m31.317s lap.
Evans had a frenetic-paced lap, going sideways in Sector 1 and being close to kissing the wall at some points, but he could not set a time faster than da Costa’s, finishing behind him in P2. Frijns overtook the Kiwi on P2, not being able to pass the Portuguese on the standings, who had a flying Super Pole lap.
Da Costa clinched pole position, his very first one in Monaco. Frijns would start from the front row as well, while Evans and Vergne would kick off from the second row. Guether, who finished qualifying on fifth position, would start the race from the third row, next to Rowland.
The group stages started and ended with drama.
Championship leader Nyck de Vries, made contact with Sam Bird on his out lap. Bird was able to put in a lap to go 16th overall, but de Vries will start the race from the back of the grid.
Sergio Sette-Camara crashed on his Group 4 run which meant the session was red-flagged for a brief period Sebastien Buemi and Tom Blomqvist were caught out by the red flag, but were given the chance to run again, finishing 13th and 21st respectively.
Nick Cassidy, out in Group 3, narrowly missed out on a Super Pole outing, finishing sixth overall ahead of Pascal Wehrlein, Alex Lynn, and Rene Rast.
Bethonie Waring
