Trulli claims first Formula E pole in Germany

Jarno Trulli claimed pole position for the German Formula E round at Berlin Tempelhof, his first since the 2009 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix.

The Italian has had a tough time so far in his first year as an owner/driver in the all-electric series, but he set an unbeatable pace on his first flying lap in qualifying. Although the 40-year-old was in the first of four five-driver qualifying groups, his time of 1m21.547s stood for pole.

Lucas di Grassi, who set the pace in free practice, got closest and ended up just 0.076 seconds behind in second place.

"I'm really pleased," said Trulli, whose best Formula E finish so far has been fourth. "We've been struggling quite a lot trying to find the right setup on the car.

"Also, it's been a very hard weekend for the team because half of the team is sick of having problems, so I don't have a race engineer at the moment!"

Trulli did have to wait until the final moments for his pole position to be confirmed, as e.DAMS driver Sebastien Buemi was in the final qualifying group. The Swiss driver went third fastest, 0.138s slower, on the first of his two laps using full 200kW power, but a poor opening sector on the last lap meant that he could not improve.

Nick Heidfeld, who joined di Grassi in the third qualifying group, ended up fourth after proving unable to improve on his second and final flier.

Di Grassi's Abt teammate, Daniel Abt, found an improvement of a quarter of a second on his final qualifying lap to jump to fifth ahead of Jerome d'Ambrosio.

Nicolas Prost qualified seventh, but looked to have the pace to do better had he strung together his best sectors. He was just six-thousandths of a second faster than Loic Duval.

The frustrated Stephane Sarrazin was ninth fastest ahead of Andretti driver Jean-Eric Vergne. Venturi driver Sarrazin looked to have the pace to be on the front three rows, but was held up by Jaime Alguersuari on his final flier. Alguersuari, who was 14th, was investigated by stewards but no action was taken.

Long Beach race winner Nelson Piquet Jr. was 13th and admitted to struggling with setup, with Putrajaya victor Sam Bird down in 15th after a spin ruined one of his two fast laps.

QUALIFYING RESULTS:

Originally on Autosport.com