Evans leads Jaguar 1-2 in Rome qualifying

Mitch Evans leads a Jaguar Racing front row lock-out in qualifying for the Rome E-Prix. 

Evans beat team-mate Sam Bird by just over 0.8s in the final duel and earn his second pole of the season. 

Bird, who had his best qualifying of the season, was set to miss out on the duels after improving his lap time under yellow flags in the group stages, but the decision was reversed. 

Group Stages

Bird and Stoffel Vandoorne were both caught out by the yellow flags in the second half of Group A qualifying.  

Sergio Sette Camara had run up the escape road at turn four on his final flying lap. Bird, Vandoorne and Jake Dennis were behind him on track. Sette Camara had to wait for Bird and Vandoorne to pass before returning to the track, with the yellow flags being brought in before Dennis came past. 

Everyone but Sette Camra improved on their final lap. 

Maximilian Guenther briefly jumped to P1 before being knocked off the top spot by Sacha Fenestraz, who topped the group with a time of 1m38.912s. 

Bird then jumped up to second and Dennis third, knocking Pascal Werhlein out of the top four. 

Porsche was certain their driver would progress to the duel stages, due to the improvement under yellows from Bird, and Bird and Vandoorne initially had their times deleted. However, it was later found they had slowed enough under yellow flags and their times were reinstated. 

Group B was equally dramatic. After the first six minutes, Evans was top of the order ahead of Sebastien Buemi, Jake Hughes and Rene Rast.  

Hughes then crashed on his final flying lap, bringing out the red flag and denying most the opportunity to improve. The incident left heavy damage to his McLaren and his fastest time was deleted, promoting Edoardo Mortara into the top four. 

The result meant Nick Cassidy was denied progression into the duel stages, leaving Dennis and Evans the only drivers in title contention in the duels. 

Duels

Evans went head to head with Mortara in the quarterfinals, beating the Maserati driver by a little over 0.4s. He then faced Buemi in the semifinals. Buemi made a mistake in the final sector and was two seconds slower than Evans at the chequered flag. 

Meanwhile, Bird had beat Dennis in the quarterfinals and Fenestraz in the semis. Fenestraz also seemed to make a small mistake in his middle sector, allowing Bird to progress through to the finals. 

In the final head-to-head, Bird was evenly matched with his team-mate in the first sector, but had a slow middle sector. That allowed Evans to edge out an advantage and cross the line with a time of 1m39.089s. It was far from the quickest time in the duels, with both Jaguar drivers hitting times in the 1m38s range in the quarter and semifinals, but it was 0.814s quicker than Bird and enough for pole. 

Fenestraz will line up third ahead of Buemi and Rast, who was the quickest of those eliminated in the quarterfinals. 

Mortara took sixth ahead of Dennis and Guenther. 

Title contenders Cassidy and Wehrlein line-up together on the grid in ninth and 10th.