Yahoo Autos Porsche’s Wehrlein takes pole for Formula E season opener in Mexico City
Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein will start the Mexico E-Prix from pole position after beating Sebastien Buemi in the final duel of qualifying for the opening round of the 2024 ABB Formula E World Championship.
After two open qualifying sessions, the field being split in two for each one, the pair made it through the head-to-head duels where the fastest four drivers from each respective qualifying group compete over a single lap to set the fastest lap time.
Wehrlein’s time in the final of 1m13.298s was 0.251s quicker than Buemi, who bettered the German’s sector three time, although the late charge was not enough for the Envision Racing driver to overhaul the deficit from the first two sectors.
The pole is Wehrlein’s fourth in Formula E, and his third in the Gen3 car, while second on the grid represents a best qualifying result for Buemi in Mexico City, whose previous best qualifying result at the track was third.
Jaguar TCS Racing’s Nick Cassidy qualified third after he was beaten by Wehrlein in the semi final duels, with teammate Mitch Evans — who set the day’s best time of 1m13.103s in his quarter final duel with Maserati’s Maximilian Guenther — classified fourth after his defeat to Buemi. Both, however, will drop back a place after being hit with penalties for red flag infringements in FP1. That elevates Guenther and NEOM McLaren’s Jake Hughes to the second row of the grid, both having fallen to Evans and Buemi respectively in the quarter finals.
Robin Frijns was classified eighth after losing out to Wehrlein following a mistake going into Turn 1. He’s another driver that will move up a position, with seventh-placed qualifier Stoffel Vandoorne also dropping a place for a Friday red flag infringement. Sacha Fenestraz (Nissan) and Jean-Eric Vergne (DS Penske) rounded out the top 10 after just missing out on spots in the duels.
Another to miss out was the reigning champion Jake Dennis, who was eliminated at the group stage. While he was an early pacesetter in the second group, traffic prevented Dennis from nailing a competitive time towards the end of the session and after a mistake going into the Turn 5 hairpin, he aborted his final attempt.
His Andretti Global teammate Norman Nato was eliminated, too. Firstly by Wehrlein ousting him from the top four on time, but then by having his best lap time deleted for going over the power limit. Nato will start 13th, with Dennis one spot behind.
One more big-name casualty was Abt Cupra’s Lucas di Grassi, who clipped an outside wall at Turn 9, damaging his left-rear suspension. He will start the race down in 19th.
