It’s Nissan on pole with Sacha Fenestraz at Cape Town E-Prix, defending from Günther, Cassidy and Evans.
Credit: Formula E Media Bank / Carl Bingham
The qualifying for round 5 of the FIA ABB Formula E World Championship is on its way. Who can top the leaderboard in todays qualifying? Let’s recap first on what happened in the two practice sessions. It appears the Jaguars possibly had an epiphany in Cape Town, with both Envision Racing and Jaguar TCS Racing showing strong performance in the practice sessions. After all, Cassidy emerged on P1 this morning. But the track nestled in the shadow of the Table Mountain seems to be a fit for Maserati as well – with Edo Mortara finding his way to Top 2 both on Friday and Saturday morning.
The fast, bumpy track in Cape Town proved itself to be challenging for many – with Buemi having a shunt into the wall during Friday’s practice session, and several drivers experiencing problems with their cars along the way.
South Africa’s electrifying atmosphere promises us a phenomenal qualifying. Group A, which will begin this session consisted of Wehrlein, Vergne, Cassidy, Hughes, Da Costa, Lotterer, Camara, Nato, Fenestraz, Tictum and Muller. The first driver with the fastest lap was Wehrlein, with time of 1:10.300s. He was followed by his teammate Da costa, 0.822s behind the German. Soon enough it was the man of the second free practice Cassidy on the top of the standings, with the time of 1:09.648s. Although the Hankook tyres don’t loose too much rubber compared to Michelin tyres in the previous years, we’re expecting to see improvements in lap times along the way.
Hughes seemed to tap the wall during one of the first laps, but he might get away without too much damage to the car. The drivers seem to be on the edge here in Cape Town, purely based on just how fast this track is. Thrilling for us, probably not as much for the Team Principals, yikes.
Five minutes left on the clock for the first group and everyone ducked back to the pits. Soon enough everyone went to crunch down their final laps. Big lap from Cassidy who was capable of putting in 1:09.007s, fastest so far in this session. Chequered flag and the ones advancing to the duels are: Fenestraz, Cassidy, Wehrlein and Vergne. Hughes, who’s been one of the best qualifiers during the group stages misses out of his chance to get to duels, possibly after the mistakes before.
It’s time for Group B to conquer the track and this time we’ll see Dennis, Buemi, Bird, Rast, Di Grassi, Evans, Rowland, Vandoorne, Mortara, Gunther and Van Der Linde. First driver to set a lap time was Mortara, with the time of 1:17.848s, followed by his teammate Gunther just behind him. Dennis crunches in a 1:10.328s, but is soon dethroned by Evans with 1:09.327s. Buemi jumps into 3rd so far, great result after the team spent a big portion of their night repairing his car after the pretty severe crash in FP1 on Friday.
Four minutes on the clock and the drivers returned to the pits. Soon enough, everyone went back for their last laps. In the last seconds, Mortara puts it into the wall and soon after, Bird bails out and puts it into the wall as well in the high speed section of the track. Red flag, and medicals on the way. As it appears, both drivers are okay. That will be an awful lot of work for the teams to get the cars going before the race. Group B seen Rast, Evans, Buemi and Gunther advance into the duels.
Duels – Quarterfinals
Wehrlein vs Cassidy
Winner: Cassidy
Vergne vs Fenestraz
Winner: Fenestraz
Buemi vs Evans
Winner: Evans
Günther vs Rast
Winner: Günther
Duels – Semifinals
Fenestraz vs Cassidy
Winner: Fenestraz
Evans vs Günther
Winner: Günther
Duels – Finals
Fenestraz vs Günther
Winner: Fenestraz
Fenestraz takes pole away from Günther, while the two Kiwis Cassidy and Evans will start from second row. In his 6th race in Formula E the French will take the prime spot on the grid, a phenomenal result for the Nissan team. By the looks of it, we’re poised for an incredible race here in Cape Town.
The Cape Town E-Prix race will begin at 15:03 CET.
