Bethonie WaringX44 leads qualifying after the first session of the day in Greenland.
With the Russell Glacier serving as the backdrop for the action, there was drama further down the order.
Championship leaders Rosberg X Racing were hit with a technical problem that caused their car to stop multiple times on their opening lap. The issue didn’t appear while Mollie Taylor was on her second run, but her lap was slowed when she rolled the car, but was able to continue.
The JBXE team weren’t so lucky, as suspension damage brought their run to an early end.
Christina Gutierrez and Sebastien Loeb were one of the final cars to hit the circuit for qualifying. At that point, the Abt car of Jutta Kleinschmidt and Mattias Ekstrom were top of the order with a time of 13m48.947s.
The X44 duo managed to lower the benchmark by a further 3.712s, with a total time of 13m45.235s.
Abt ended the session second ahead of Chip Ganassi Racing and Veloce Racing, who were the first team out of the paddock this morning.
Xite Energy Racing came home fifth ahead of Sainz XE Team, which had multiple stoppages in free practice but managed a clean run in qualifying.
Andretti, XRX and JBXE completed the order.
A poor performance in Q1 won’t completely derail a team’s weekend this round, however, after changes to the championship rules mean special points will be awarded for qualifying. This means, despite not finishing its run, JBXE took a point from the session and could still make it to the final.
Image courtesy of Extreme E
Andrea Perilli