Despite challenging track conditions, serial Pole scorer and Nissan e.dams' Sebastien Buemi snatched the Julius Baer Pole Position in New York City, while favourite Vergne and challenger di Grassi will start the title decider from the middle of the pack.
With just hours to go until the penultimate race of the season in New York City, Nissan e.dams' Sebastien Buemi will start on Pole in front of Mahindra Racing's Pascal Wehrlein and Panasonic Jaguar Racing's Alex Lynn in second and third.
Rounding off the Super Pole standings is Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler's Daniel Abt, BMW i Andretti Motorsport's Alex Sims and Envision Virgin Racing's Sam Bird in sixth. With no Pole, Abt is out of contention for the Championship title, leaving just seven drivers with a mathematical chance of taking the top spot.
Ahead of Geox Dragon's home race, Jose Maria Lopez just missed out on Super Pole and will start the race in seventh ahead of BMW i Andretti Motorsport's Antonio Felix da Costa and Envision Virgin Racing's Robin Frijns.
Heading out first, both defending champion Jean-Eric Vergne and challenger Lucas di Grassi bore the brunt of a dusty track as they battled to make it to the top of the timesheet. Failing to make it anywhere near the front, Vergne will start 10th ahead of Geox Dragon's Max Gunther and NIO's Tom Dillmann. Despite driving the whole season for the Chinese-British team, Dillmann is the only driver yet to score a point in the Championship. Behind Dillmann is Panasonic Jaguar Racing's Mitch Evans in 13th.
Sitting four places adrift of the reigning champion is his main opponent di Grassi in 14th, followed by HWA Racelab's Gary Paffett, DS Techeetah's Andre Lotterer and Venturi's Edoardo Mortara.
Starting near the back of the pack is NIO's Oliver Turvey in 18th, HWA Racelab's Stoffel Vandoorne in 19th and Nissan e.dams Oliver Rowland in 20th, who leads backmarkers Felipe Massa (Venturi) and Mahindra's Jerome d'Ambrosio in 22nd.
Positions are provisional at the time of publishing. See the full results here.