TAG Heuer Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein took his third Julius Baer Pole Position of Season 10, navigating the challenging but beautiful streets of Monaco. The German driver was on pole by 0.448s, going up against the DS PENSKE of Stoffel Vandoorne.
The pole position and subsequent three points also promotes Wehrlein to the top of the World Championship standings, as he was tied with the Andretti of Jake Dennis.
It was an action-packed qualifying, with both Jaguar TCS Racing pilots Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy failing to make the Duel Finals. For Evans, he had a lap time deleted for exceeding track limits and Cassidy clipped the wall on his flying lap.
Several big names failed to make the Duels, with the likes of Dennis, Nissan’s Oliver Rowland and last year’s front row starters Sacha Fenestraz (Nissan) and Jake Hughes (NEOM McLaren) all missing out on a slot in the top eight.
Final
Pascal Wehrlein took on Stoffel Vandoorne for the title of pole position, and it was an easy win for the Porsche driver who went almost half a second quicker. Wehrlein has two previous front row starts in Monaco but neither he nor Porsche have ever taken pole for the Monaco E-Prix until now. In fact, Porsche’s last pole for a single-seater race in Monaco was as engine supplier to Alain Prost’s McLaren at the 1986 Monaco GP. PENSKE also have their first-ever front row start in Monaco.
Semi-Finals
Mitch Evans was unable to continue his streak of topping every session, when he had his lap time deleted for exceeding track limits on his flying lap against Pascal Wehrlein. That sent the Porsche driver through automatically, but it isn’t over for Evans with so many overtaking opportunities in the race later this afternoon.
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The last spot in the Finals was between Cassidy and Vandoorne. Nick Cassidy has never started in the top six in Monaco, and Vandoorne’s best starting grid position was here in 2022 when he started fourth. Things looked close, but a rare mistake for Cassidy saw him clip the wall and meant Vandoorne progressed into the Final.
Quarter-Finals
First up was Wehrlein and Maximilian Guenther, as the two German drivers fought for a space in the Semi Finals. For Pascal, the Porsche driver reached the Duel stages for a fifth consecutive race and ahead of this weekend had the best average starting position this season – 4.3. It was Wehrlein who managed to progress ahead as he hunted down his third pole of the season.
Next up was Mitch Evans and Antonio Felix da Costa, with this being the first Duels appearance this year for the Season 6 champion. Evans was quickest in FP1, FP2 and Group A qualifying and continued his impressive run of form by soaring through with the quickest time of the weekend so far. Regardless of if he got through or not, this Duels appearance guaranteed Da Costa his best start in Monaco since winning from pole in 2021.
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During the battle between Nick Cassidy and Sebastien Buemi, it was the Jaguar driver who got the better time. This is the first time in six races that both Jaguar Racing cars reached the Duel stages, with Evans and Cassidy going through into the Semis. Buemi was a two-time polesitter on the short Monaco layout, but has never started in the top ten on the full layout.
Lastly was a DS PENSKE fight in their stunning black and gold Monaco livery. Vandoorne was able to continue his record of having the most career Duel stage appearances in Formula E on 25, which is one more than Evans. For PENSKE, this was a great result regardless as they have not had a car start in the top-eight in Monaco since the very first Monaco E-Prix in 2015! Despite Jean-Eric Vergne’s best efforts, it was Stoffel Vandoorne who sailed through.
Group A
It was a dramatic end to Group A qualifying, with lots of the favourites hoping for their chance to progress into the Duels. However, there were only four slots! Mitch Evans continued his trend of topping every Monaco session so far, and was joined by Pascal Wehrlein in second. Maximilian Guenther finished third and Antonio Felix da Costa earned himself the last spot, with both Porsches getting through to the Quarter Finals.
Despite finishing in second place over both Free Practice sessions, Envision Racing’s Robin Frijns was knocked out by just 0.002s. Another big name out was Nissan’s Oliver Rowland who ended up ninth out of the 11 cars on track, and will mean he has a big task to climb up the grid later on to continue his recent run of podiums.
Group B
There were plenty of drivers improving on their lap time during the final flying laps, including Stoffel Vandoorne who managed to go quickest of his group. He progressed through to the Quarter Finals, as did his teammate Jean-Eric Vergne, with both of the DS PENSKE drivers repping a unique Monaco livery this weekend.
Joining them in the Duels was Nick Cassidy, and Sebastien Buemi with the Jaguar-powered cars continuing their quick pace here. Nissan’s Sacha Fenestraz finished seventh, a disappointing result for the man who was on pole here last year until his time was deleted.
For Jake Hughes of NEOM McLaren, who did start from that first place spot here last year, he was forced to settle for eighth with his new teammate Taylor Barnard down in 11th. The 19-year-old Brit will be making his Formula E race debut today with the papaya team after Sam Bird broke his hand after an incident in FP1 this morning. The crash saw Bird go down the escape road at Turn 1 after a heavy lock up, and smash the front right side of his car into the barriers.
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Jake Dennis and Andretti continued their qualifying woes, with Dennis down in ninth.
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