Evans Takes Monaco Pole Over Wehrlein
Calum Gill 12:16 30/04/2022
Mitch Evans continued his superb run of Formula E form with a commanding Monaco E-Prix qualifying performance that gave Jaguar its first pole position of the 2022 season.
Having dismissed Lucas di Grassi’s Venturi Mercedes in the quarter-final duels and championship leader Jean-Éric Vergne’s DS Techeetah in the semi-final, Evans went up against Porsche driver Pascal Wehrlein in the qualifying final. And Evans - a double winner in Rome last time out - simply extended his gap over Wehrlein for the majority of the lap, taking pole by just over a quarter of a second. Wehrlein, Vergne and leading Mercedes runner Stoffel Vandoorne complete the top four. Di Grassi starts fifth alongside André Lotterer, who lost a quarter-final duel to Porsche team-mate Wehrlein. Robin Frijns of Envision and reigning champion Nyck de Vries (Mercedes) fill row four, having lost in the quarter-finals to Vandoorne and Vergne respectively.
Both group qualifying sessions ended with traffic congestion as everyone flooded onto the track for last-minute laps. Nick Cassidy and Jake Dennis both had offs at Sainte Devote during the scrambles in their groups, leaving them 18th and 15th on the grid respectively.Sam Bird was just 0.013 seconds off a duels spot and also has a grid penalty for a Rome collision, meaning he’ll start 13th in the second Jaguar. Last year’s Monaco winner António Félix da Costa and Edoardo Mortara were the other regular frontrunners who didn’t reach the duel stages, da Costa ending up 10th for DS Techeetah and Mortara only qualifying his Venturi Mercedes 16th.
Nissan’s practice promise didn’t turn into anything of note in qualifying again: Maximilian Günther was down in 11th and double Monaco Formula E winner Sébastien Buemi was slowest in all in group A, leaving him last of all behind Oliver Turvey on the final row. Turvey’s NIO 333 team-mate Dan Ticktum was one of the stars of qualifying, though. He qualified an Formula E career-best 14th.
