Formula E São Paulo: Vandoorne beats da Costa to pole position

Formula E has returned this weekend and we’re in Brazil for round six. After a month’s break, it was another fantastic qualifying session like we’ve seen in every race weekend so far this season.

It started off strong for the DS Penske team who were first and second after everybody’s early runs in group A, but it would only be defending champion Stoffel Vandoorne to make it through to the duels for the team. He was joined by Nick Cassidy, Edoardo Mortara and Jake Hughes, with championship leader Pascal Wehlein suffering a shock early exit for Porsche.

In Group B, Robin Frijns returned for Cupra after his wrist injury and had a scare straight away when his car shut down before he could start a lap. He got it started again, however, but struggled to perform and only finished 10^th in the group. It was the opposite for Sam Bird, Maximilian Günther, Antonio Félix da Costa and Mitch Evans though, whom all made it into the duels.

The first duel saw Mortara beat Cassidy to reach the semi-finals. It was a nail-biting start to proceedings with two hundredths in it.

The next quarter-final saw a juicy battle between Jake Hughes and Stoffel Vandoorne but the latter took the win after Hughes had a scrappy lap.

Quarter-final three was Da Costa vs Günther with the former driving in his first qualifying since his race win in Cape Town. He’d maintain that form in this battle, getting into the semi-finals.

The fourth and last quarter-final had Mitch Evans comfortably beating his Jaguar teammate Sam Bird to finalise the final four places in the duels.

The first place in the shootout for pole was taken by Vandoorne who kept up his solid form of the weekend so far, beating Mortara.

He would be joined by da Costa in the final after the Portuguese driver beat Evans by the smallest of margins.

But it was the Belgian who took pole to see five different drivers on pole in the first five races of this season!