Posted on 12th March 2016
Jerome D'Ambrosio will start the Mexico ePrix in Pole Position (his first in the series) after championship leader Sebastien Buemi makes a mistake in his qualifying run in the Super Pole shoot out.
Renault e.dams driver Buemi topped the group phase but moments after beating d’Ambrosio’s superpole benchmark in sector one, locked up at Turn 4 and his chance to secure Pole Position was gone.
It is now the third race in a row Buemi has made a mistake in qualifying, though by getting through to the superpole; he has avoided the back-of-the-grid start he endured in Buenos Aires.
While Buemi’s error made d’Ambrosio’s life easier, he had already delivered a fantastic lap to go three tenths faster than Buemi’s team-mate Nicolas Prost who finished in second place.
Abt Audi Sport driver Lucas di Grassi lost a lot of time in the final sector of his superpole lap and fell 0.010 seconds short of Prost’s best and starts the ePrix in third place. He will start on the second row alongside team-mate Daniel Abt who finished in fourth place.
Sebastien Buemi will start the ePrix in fifth p;ace ahead of Jean-Eric Vergne in sixth place after delivering his best qualifying performance since the opening round of the season for the DS Virgin Racing team.
Despite only completing a handful of flying laps in practice, Team Aguri’s Antonio Felix da Costa was an impressive seventh fastest, but will take a 10-place grid penalty after requiring a gearbox change and will start the race in seventeenth.
With Felix da Costa's penalty, this now means that the second Dragon of Loic Duval and Mahindra’s Nick Heidfeld qualified in seventh and eighth with Stephane Sarrazin and Buenos Aires ePrix victor Sam Bird completing the top 10 finishers of the session.
Inaugural champion Nelson Piquet Jr will start last as his difficult season continued with a crash during the group phase. Piquet had started his 170kW lap when he locked up heading into Turn 1 and ploughed through the TecPro barrier, which then damaged his front of his NEXTEV TCR 001. Luckily Piquet was okay and unhurt from the incident and this caused a red flag as the car was recovered from the circuit safely.
Piquet’s team-mate Oliver Turvey looked as though he could deliver another strong performance after showing well in practice, but an issue on his 200kW lap left him in sixteenth place.
Sarah Jones- @jonesy_laaa
