Mitch Evans, Jaguar TCS Racing
Mitch Evans claims pole position for the Hyderabad E-Prix, beating out Jean-Eric Vergne in an unusual qualifying session.
Track limits continued to be an issue during qualifying with several of the drivers having laps deleted with drivers running wide at the turn one and two chicane.
In Group A, Rookie Jake Hughes failed to make the duels for the first time in his Formula E career. Despite setting a time worthy of progression, a track limits violation saw his fastest two laps deleted.
In Group B qualifying, the red flag was brought out with six minutes left of the session after Kelvin van der Linde had yet another technical issue with his ABT Cupra and had to park himself in the runoff.
Both Maserati MSG cars advanced to the duels for the first time this season in a welcome improvement of form for the Monagaque outfit who came out of testing favourites.
With the technical issues looming over their heads, it was another difficult qualifying session for Porsche with neither of their cars progressing out of the group stages.
Wehrlein was then hit with a three-place grid penalty post-session for impeding the NIO 333 of Sergio Sette Camara and will start behind title rival Jake Dennis on the grid.
The same for their customer team Andretti who were also taken out of FP1 as a precautionary measure for the same technical issues in the Porsche powertrain.
The Semifinals came to a halt with several drivers being penalised for going wide in the quarter-finals and the FIA having to refine the processes in order to understand who should have progressed.
After all had been decided, only the results of quarter-final duels one and two stood, with Sebastian Buemi and Evans advancing.
After being knocked out by Bird in the quarter-final duel three, Jean-Eric Vergne ended up in the duels final with all the track limits penalties applied.
Despite Bird having issues with track limits, the Jaguar-powered cars continued to impress with Evans and Buemi facing off in the quarter-finals. Evans ended up beating Buemi for a place in the final.
In a bizarre circumstance where both laps were deleted in QF4, Jean-Eric Vergne took part in the semi-final duel alone without a competitor to face off with.
In a tight final duel, only two-hundredths separated the drivers with the dominant Jaguar power beating out the DS Penske of Vergne.
The inaugural Hyderabad E-Prix will get underway at 15:03 local time.
Keyword: Evans takes pole for Hyderabad E-Prix