London ePrix: Prost on pole, rain catches out title contenders

The rain arrived midway through the second segment of qualifying, by which time only four drivers had set a representative laptime: Prost, Oliver Turvey, Bruno Senna and Robin Frijns.

As such, that quartet made up the superpole contingent, as Jean-Eric Vergne - who had set the fifth best time - was unable to compete, having damaged his DS Virgin car in a crash during the opening group.

With track conditions rapidly improving, Frijns was first to set his time, setting a benchmark of 1m29.500s that was swiftly demolished by Senna, who posted a 1m27.758s.

Turvey was the third man on track, but failed to best Senna's effort, slotting between the Brazilian and Frijns, before Prost grabbed the top spot with a 1m27.192s, just over half a second clear of the pack.

Vergne starts fifth, ahead of the three drivers who set their times in the damp-but-drying conditions of Group 4: Daniel Abt, Sam Bird and Nick Heidfeld.

Bird's failure to take pole position however means his slim mathematical chances of taking the title are now over.

Stephane Sarrazin was another driver to hit the wall, doing so in Group 2 after clipping the inside of a chicane with his front-left wheel, bringing out the red flags for a second time - but still set the ninth best time.

Di Grassi outqualifies Buemi

Title fighters Buemi and di Grassi both got the worst of the conditions in Group 3, adding further drama to their championship battle.

Buemi's best effort on a sodden track was a 1m36.771s, good enough only for P14 - which puts him three places behind di Grassi, who posted a 1m35.711s to end up 11th fastest.

Both were bested however by Loic Duval, who set the best time in the third group to take 10th.

Simona de Silvestro and Mike Conway were responsible for the third and fourth red flags running in Groups 2 and 4 respectively.

After spinning prior to the red flags caused by Sarrazin's crash, de Silvestro got a second opportunity to set a time, but spun on the wet track surface and nosed the barriers, relegating herself to the back of the grid.

Conway, meanwhile, misjudged his braking and went straight on into the barriers on his hot lap, and will start down in 15th. In the same group, Nelson Piquet Jr was forced to abandon the session with a minute to go, and starts in 17th.

Qualifying results - Superpole:

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Nicolas Prost	DAMS	1'27.192
2	Bruno Senna	Mahindra Racing	1'27.758	0.566
3	Oliver Turvey	China Racing	1'28.284	1.092
4	Robin Frijns	Andretti Autosport	1'29.500	2.308

Position 5 to 18:

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
5	Jean-Eric Vergne	Virgin Racing	1'26.799	3.552
6	Daniel Abt	Team Abt	1'29.814	6.567
7	Sam Bird	Virgin Racing	1'30.453	7.206
8	Nick Heidfeld	Mahindra Racing	1'32.367	9.120
9	Stéphane Sarrazin	Venturi	1'33.660	10.413
10	Loic Duval	Dragon Racing	1'35.315	12.068
11	Lucas di Grassi	Team Abt	1'35.711	12.464
12	Jérôme d'Ambrosio	Dragon Racing	1'35.727	12.480
13	Ma Qing Hua	Team Aguri	1'36.748	13.501
14	Sébastien Buemi	DAMS	1'36.771	13.524
15	Mike Conway	Venturi	1'37.562	14.315
16	Antonio Felix da Costa	Team Aguri	1'38.501	15.254
17	Nelson Piquet Jr.	China Racing	1'38.922	15.675
18	Simona de Silvestro	Andretti Autosport	1'50.455	27.208