MORTARA DOMINATES QUALIFYING IN JEDDAH AND TAKES POLE FOR MAHINDRA
Edoardo Mortara delivered a dominant performance in qualifying 1 of the Jeddah E-prix to take pole position for the first race of the weekend.
The Swiss driver was in control from the very beginning. Mortara topped his group in the early stages and set the fastest overall lap time before heading into the knockout duels. In the final, he set a 1:15.336 lap despite a small and risky brush with the wall in the last sector. Even with that moment, his time was strong enough to secure pole position.
Maximilian Günther, who was in the final with Edo, put together a clean final lap but fell short by 0.111 seconds. He will start from second place alongside the Mahindra driver on the front row.
Pascal Wehrlein in the Porsche and Norman Nato in the Nissan will line up on the second row. Both drivers were competitive throughout qualifying but were eliminated in the semi-finals by Mortara and Günther.
Taylor Barnard and António Félix da Costa were knocked out in the quarter-finals and will start from fifth and sixth respectively. Nico Müller and Jean-Éric Vergne also exited at that stage and will line up just behind them.
Jake Dennis for Andretti-Porsche and Mitch Evans in the Jaguar complete the top ten. Evans narrowly missed advancing by just one thousandth of a second.
Despite Mortara’s success, it was a disappointing session for his Mahindra teammate Nyck de Vries, who could only manage 11th place. Dan Ticktum will start alongside him as the best-placed Cupra driver.
The championship leader Nick Cassidy endured a difficult session and qualified 13th, while Joel Eriksson was the fastest Envision driver in 14th.
Further back on the grid, reigning World Champion Oliver Rowland had a tough qualifying and will line up outside the top positions. The grid is completed by Felipe Drugovich, Sébastien Buemi, and the two Lola-Yamaha drivers, Zane Maloney and Lucas Di Grassi.
Mortara’s pole position puts Mahindra in a strong position ahead of the race, and all eyes will now be on whether he can turn this dominant qualifying performance into victory in Jeddah.
Share this content:
