Mexico ePrix: Buemi slip gives D'Ambrosio pole

Having been quickest in the group stages, Renault edams driver Buemi locked up braking for the first corner during his lap in the Top 5 shootout.

That meant that D'Ambrosio, who had secured provisional pole with a time of 1m03.705s, secured his second pole of the season following on from his success in Punta del Este.

D'Ambrosio's three points for pole move him ahead of Dragon Racing teammate Loic Duval for fourth in the standings.

Buemi's teammate Nico Prost secured second with a lap 0.308s off D'Ambrosio's pace, eclipsing Lucas di Grassi by just 0.010s.

Daniel Abt made it an all-Abt Audi second row with fourth, with Buemi completing the top five after completing his hot lap 1.3s off the pace.

Jean-Eric Vergne topped the opening qualifying group with a time of 1m04.268s, but this wasn’t enough to make the Top 5 shootout, the Frenchman just missing out in sixth.

Antonio Felix da Costa was seventh, ahead of Loic Duval, Nick Heidfeld and Stephane Sarrazin. Buenos Aires ePrix winner Sam Bird couldn’t do better than 11th after a mistake in the final sector.

The Brit however will start in P10 due to a 10-place grid penalty for Felix da Costa due to a gearbox change.

Drama for Piquet and Senna

There was trouble in the final group for reigning champion Nelson Piquet Jr, who suffered a monster lock-up at Turn 1, ploughing into the Tecpro barriers and destroying the front end of his NEXTEV TCR machine – an incident that also brought out the red flags.

“I was pushing the limits a bit and I think I found it!” said Piquet. “I’m sure my guys are going to hustle as much as they can, hopefully they can get [the car] ready [for the race].”

Mahindra’s Bruno Senna will share the back row with Piquet, after the Brazilian suffered a spin at Turn 1 in the second group, damaging his car with light contact against the barriers.

Qualifying results:

os	Driver	Team	Car	Time
1	Jerome d'Ambrosio	Dragon Racing	Venturi VM200-FE-01	1:03.705
2	Nicolas Prost	DAMS	Renault Z.E.15	1:04.013
3	Lucas di Grassi	Audi Sport Team Abt	ABT Schaeffler FE01	1:04.023
4	Daniel Abt	Audi Sport Team Abt	ABT Schaeffler FE01	1:04.335
5	Sebastien Buemi	DAMS	Renault Z.E.15	1:05.183
6	Jean-Eric Vergne	Virgin Racing	Virgin DSV-01	1:04.268
7	Antonio Felix da Costa	Team Aguri	Spark SRT_01E	1:04.371
8	Loic Duval	Dragon Racing	Venturi VM200-FE-01	1:04.492
9	Nick Heidfeld	Mahindra Racing	Mahindra M2ELECTRO	1:04.523
10	Stephane Sarrazin	Venturi	Venturi VM200-FE-01	1:04.583
11	Sam Bird	Virgin Racing	Virgin DSV-01	1:04.594
12	Simona de Silvestro	Andretti Autosport	Spark SRT_01E	1:04.606
13	Robin Frijns	Andretti Autosport	Spark SRT_01E	1:04.959
14	Mike Conway	Venturi	Venturi VM200-FE-01	1:05.108
15	Salvador Duran	Team Aguri	Spark SRT_01E	1:05.452
16	Oliver Turvey	China Racing	NEXTEV TCR FormulaE 001	1:06.166
17	Bruno Senna	Mahindra Racing	Mahindra M2ELECTRO	1:07.724
18	Nelson Piquet Jr.	China Racing	NEXTEV TCR FormulaE 001	no time