Nick Cassidy rebounded from a horrible start to Formula E’s title decider in London to grab pole position for the second London E-Prix race.
The Jaguar TCS driver failed to set a time in practice on Sunday morning due to brake-by-wire issues, problems that still threatened to derail his qualifying runs too. But a lap of 1m09.871s in the Duels final saw him grab pole ahead of Maserati MSG’s Maximilian Guenther by 0.169s.
Cassidy was up by only 0.003s in the first sector, but a stellar second increased that gap to over a tenth of a second. Another purple sector, this time quicker by 0.56s, put all fears to bed.
Ahead of the final, Cassidy topped the first group session in front of fellow championship contender Pascal Wehrlein, Sam Bird, and Robin Frijns – a performance he described as the “best job I’ve ever done in Formula E”.
He then defeated Envsion Racing’s Frijns in the first round of the Duels, despite taking too much curb at Turn 13 which unsettled his car through Turn 14. Next up was TAG Heuer Porsche’s Wehrlein, who he beat by 0.163s.
[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1394]
Guenther had a similar route to the final, topping the second group ahead of Mitch Evans, and the DS Penske pairing of Stoffel Vandoorne and Jean-Eric Vergne. He then defeated Vergne and Evans in the Duels, Evans unable to overhaul a strong first sector from the German despite recovering in the final two parts of the lap.
All three remaining championship contenders start Sunday evening’s season finale in the front two rows of the grid, with Evans lining up third directly behind his teammate, and Saturday winner and Wehrlein fourth.
Robin Frijns will start fifth, with Vergne sixth and Vandoorne seventh. Sam Bird will line up eighth with FP3 pace-setter Oliver Rowland and Antonio Felix da Costa completing the top 10.
Jehan Daruvala and Norman Nato will start 11th and 12 respectively, ahead of Dan Ticktum, Lucas di Grassi and Jake Hughes. Nico Mueller will line up 16th, with Saturday podium finisher Sebastien Buemi 17th.
Sergio Sette Camara, Sacha Fenestraz, Edorado Mortara, Jake Dennis, and Nyck de Vries complete the grid.
After pole and the three points that come with it, Cassidy moves to within a point of Evans, and just four behind Wehrlein, making Sunday’s race very much a winner-takes-all affair.