da Costa claims Marrakesh FE pole, nightmare for Evans

Antonio Felix da Costa claimed his first FIA Formula E pole position for DS Techeetah as championship leader Mitch Evans suffered a nightmare session in Marrakesh.

da Costa turned in a brilliant 1m17.158s to deny Maximilian Gunther a first pole in the series by just 0.069s, after the BMW driver’s lap faded having initially been up on da Costa’s benchmark through sector one.

It marks the Portuguese racer’s first pole since joining Techeetah from BMW and the first time he has topped qualifying since the 2018-19 season-opener in Saudi Arabia.

Andre Lotterer also narrowly missed out on a first pole for Porsche as he wound up third-quickest and just 0.095s off the pace in a close Super Pole session, who is joined on the second row of the grid by Mercedes driver Nyck de Vries.

Venturi’s Edoardo Mortara outpaced Nissan driver Sebastien Buemi by just 0.008s to beat the Swiss racer to fifth spot.

It was a disastrous qualifying for Evans and Jaguar, who were left to rue a timing error as the 2019-20 points leader ran out of time to set a lap and will start at the very back of the grid.

The New Zealander, who felt he had the potential to post at least a 1m17.4s and had comfortably topped second practice, is also under investigation for crossing the finish line twice after the chequered flag.

Jerome d’Ambrosio just missed out on a spot in Super Pole as he took seventh for Mahindra, ahead of BMW driver Alexander Sims, who sits second in the championship.

Nissan’s Oliver Rowland was ninth, while James Calado rounded out the top 10 as the lead Jaguar driver as the Briton secured his best qualifying result to date.

Reigning FE champion Jean-Eric Vergne, who has been battling illness throughout the weekend so far, was a notable absentee from the top 10 in 11th place for DS Techeetah.

Full results from Marrakesh FE Qualifying.