Bethonie WaringRobin Frijns earns Abt Cupra’s first pole position of the 2022-23 Formula E season.
Frijns and team-mate Nico Mueller locked out the front row of the grid after a wet qualifying session led to mixed up field.
Championship leader Pascal Wehrlein will start sixth after being knocked out of the duels in the quarter finals.
Group stages
Rain had stopped by the time the track went green for the first qualifying group, but there was still considerable standing water on the track.
Mueller immediately topped the times, with Andretti’s Jake Dennis close behind. Wehrlein joiend them at the front of the order, and the trio swapped fastest laps.
In the final stages of the session, Jean-Eric Vergne jumped up to claim the top spot with a time of 1m19.047s, knocking Wehrlein to second. Mueller and Dennis progressed to the duels, with Antonio Felix Da Costa missing out on a spot in the top four by just 0.033s.
In Group B, Frijns proved both Abt cars had strong pace in the changing conditions, jumping to the top early on and continuing to improve on his best lap time. Mitch Evans joined him at the top of the order, briefly taking the top spot before another improvement from Frijns.
As in Group A, it was a last minute lap that decided the order, though, with Sebastien Buemi taking the chequered flag to jump up to P1 with a time of 1m18.282s.
Frijns claimed second, ahead of Evans and Nick Cassidy. The gap back to fifth was notably higher in Group B, with Stoffel Vandoorne a further 0.324s back.
Duels
Championship leader Pascal Wehrlein was the favourite in the first duel of the day, but Nico Mueller continued to impress with a time just over 0.3s faster than Wehrlein.
Mueller then went head to head with Jean-Eric Vergne. Whether down to the cooler track conditions or some other reason, the times were roughly a second slower than those completed in the group stages, but the 1m19.177s was enough for Mueller to progress to the finals.
Team-mate Robin Frijns had faced race winner Mitch Evans in the quarter finals and Sebastien Buemi in the duels. Buemi had actually been beaten by team-mate Nick Cassidy in the quarter finals, but Cassidy’s time was deleted for improper use of 350kW mode. Frijns pipped Evans by just 0.069s, and beat Buemi by 0.328s.
In the final, Frijns just had the edge over his team-mate, taking pole position with a time of 1m18.748s to go 0.368s quicker than Mueller.
Buemi and Vergne line up on the second row of the grid ahead of Mitch Evans and Pascal Wehrlein. Jake Dennis and Nick Cassidy compelte the order of those through to the duels.
Just outside the top eight, Vandoorne lines up ninth, with Da Costa alongside him.
