Jerome D'Ambrosio took an unlikely pole position for the Mexican ePrix for Dragon racing. He was joined by Daniel Abt, Lucas Di Grassi, Sebastian Buemi and Nico Prost in super pole. All eyes were on Abt who set off first. He will start 4th on the grid with a 1:04.3, over half a second slower to pole sitter D’Ambrosio. The closest person to him was prost in the e.Dams car, with a
time of 1:04.0, which was the same time Di Grassi set when he went for his 200kw qualifying lap.
It was all looking good for Buemi until a big lock up put any hopes of him getting a quick time out of the fast-closing window. He would finish his lap, but it be a paltry1:05.1;r over one and a half seconds slower to the pole position lap from the
Belgium. Jerome was very suprised to get his car on pole. He said the following when he was in the car.
“I think it’s unexpected in the sense that we knew we were going to try for the top five – it’s the same thing as Punta,” D’Ambrosio said.
“I went to Jay Penske and said ‘I think
we’re going to be P4 and P5 because the ultimate speed is around there, but you’re ok if I go full on and take all the risks?”.
“He said ‘do what you’ve got to do, but keep it in one piece’. I said I’d try! I went for it, and it worked out. Now there’s a race to do, but it’s another couple of points. I’m happy for everyone in the team.”
Defending champion Nelson Piquet Jr. saw his title defence take another blow as he crashed heavily at the first corner on his fast qualifying lap, breaking the TecPro barrier in two. The rear end of their car is still lively, thus making its quite an animal to drive.
Both Vergne and Da Costa were close to making it to Super Pole, but didn’t make the cut, albeit only by a couple of seconds.