Rome E-Prix: Vandoorne takes pole after Rowland hits the wall

Vandoorne progressed through to the superpole shootout despite a fairly subdued run through his group three qualifying effort in which he was pipped by Porsche’s Andre Lotterer. 

The Belgian then leapt to the top of the timing screens with an impressive 1m38.484s effort in the top-six superpole fight and survived the threat from Rowland to land pole by 0.167s.  

Rowland blitzed the opening two sectors, gaining the benefit of track evolution as the last driver to take to the track, and appeared odds on to eclipse Vandoorne. 

But after a couple of near-misses, Rowland finally tapped the wall on the exit of the final corner to lose half a second and slip to third place on the grid. He later stopped on track. 

That error permitted Lotterer, who scored pole in the 2018-19 Rome E-Prix on the previous shorter circuit configuration, to grab a front-row start. 

Behind Rowland, free practice pacesetter and Audi driver Lucas di Grassi had held provisional pole thanks to deeply competitive middle and final sector times only to fall back by 0.419s at the end. 

Double champion driver Jean-Eric Vergne, aboard his rapidly repaired DS Techeetah, walked away in fifth place, having comfortably pulled 0.8s on Maximilian Gunther.  

The BMW Andretti driver, who has crashed in five of the last seven races, was messy and locked up his front-right wheel in the final sector to fall 1.3s adrift of Vandoorne’s pace.  

Robin Frijns was the first driver not to progress to superpole. The only group one runner to opt for a preparation lap instead of heading straight out for a flying run, the Envision Virgin Racing driver hung on for the duration until he was finally relegated by the late pace of Gunther. 

Frijns will line up for the race ahead of points leader and Mercedes racer Nyck de Vries, who ended the opening group shootout just 0.081s behind Frijns, with Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein and Rowland’s teammate Sebastien Buemi rounding out the top 10 after two sideways laps. 

Another championship big hitter and second in the points, Sam Bird ran to only 11th ahead of Jaguar Racing teammate Mitch Evans, the Kiwi tagging the outside wall on his flying lap and collected the advertising banner. 

Defending champion Antonio Felix da Costa was at the mercy of the low-grip group one conditions and ran to a subdued 18th ahead of NIO 333 racer Tom Blomqvist. 

His challenging day, having crashed and caused a red flag in the opening practice session, looks set to continue as he remains under investigation by the FIA for entering the fast lane early. 

A spin for Rene Rast and a wall tag for Nick Cassidy put paid to their promise, with the Audi driver losing the rear of his car under braking for Turn 14. 

Meanwhile, Cassidy posted the fastest time of group qualifying during the first sector only to tag the wall and damage his driveshaft, which forced him to stop on track. 

Venturi Racing diagnosed a last-minute technical fault for Edoardo Mortara. The team broke parc ferme regulations in an attempt to repair the car but he still only completed an out-lap. 

Oliver Turvey missed the session altogether as his NIO 333 crew rebuild an entirely new car following his free practice shunt. Turvey has had six penalty points added to his race licence, having been apportioned blame for taking out Jake Dennis and Vergne in a start line shunt. 

Qualifying results:

Cla	#	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	5	Stoffel Vandoorne	Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team	1'38.484
2	36	Andre Lotterer	Porsche Team	1'38.651	0.167
3	22	Oliver Rowland	DAMS	1'38.889	0.405
4	11	Lucas di Grassi	Team Abt	1'38.903	0.419
5	25	Jean-Eric Vergne	Techeetah	1'38.947	0.463
6	28	Maximilian Gunther	Andretti Autosport	1'39.751	1.267
7	4	Robin Frijns	Virgin Racing	1'39.081	0.597
8	17	Nyck de Vries	Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team	1'39.162	0.678
9	99	Pascal Wehrlein	Porsche Team	1'39.241	0.757
10	23	Sébastien Buemi	DAMS	1'39.348	0.864
11	10	Sam Bird	Jaguar Racing	1'39.443	0.959
12	20	Mitch Evans	Jaguar Racing	1'39.654	1.170
13	94	Alex Lynn	Mahindra Racing	1'39.743	1.259
14	71	Norman Nato	Venturi	1'39.762	1.278
15	29	Alexander Sims	Mahindra Racing	1'39.829	1.345
16	7	Sergio Sette Camara	DRAGON / PENSKE AUTOSPORT	1'39.943	1.459
17	6	Nico Müller	DRAGON / PENSKE AUTOSPORT	1'40.057	1.573
18	13	Antonio Felix da Costa	Techeetah	1'40.079	1.595
19	88	Tom Blomqvist	NIO Formula E Team	1'40.120	1.636
20	27	Jake Dennis	Andretti Autosport	1'40.456	1.972
21	33	René Rast	Team Abt	1'48.022	9.538
22	37	Nick Cassidy	Virgin Racing	1'51.081	12.597
23	48	Edoardo Mortara	Venturi
24	8	Oliver Turvey	NIO Formula E Team
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