FE: D'Ambrosio leads all-Dragon front row

Jerome d'Ambrosio ended Sebastien Buemi's early-season Formula E qualifying stranglehold with his first series pole position in Punta del Este.

A mistake from Buemi and a poor lap from Lucas di Grassi allowed d'Ambrosio to lead a Dragon Racing one-two with a pole time of 1m15.498s. The Belgian driver had been strong all day and his effort was four tenths clear of teammate Loic Duval, with Sam Bird bouncing back from a crash in first practice to take third for DS Virgin Racing.

Buemi was favored to repeat his Beijing and Putrajaya poles after topping practice and the main part of qualifying, but locked up at Turn 10 in the pole shootout and ended up fifth, behind championship leader di Grassi.

Nicolas Prost broke his Renault e.dams Z.E.15's front wing on a curb and wound up sixth fastest, ahead of Daniel Abt in the second Abt Schaeffler FE01.

Team Aguri's Antonio Felix da Costa was best of those running season-one technology, while Bruno Senna and Oliver Turvey completed the top 10.

Turvey's effort was comfortably NEXTEV TCR's best performance of the season, and the beleaguered team's fortunes were boosted further with champion Nelson Piquet Jr. to line up 12th.

Starting at the tail of the field are a trio of drivers who all had dramas. Jacques Villeneuve will start last after crashing on his flying lap at Turn 17. DS Virgin Racing's Jean-Eric Vergne joins the Venturi driver on the back row of the grid after running wide at Turn 1 and later being balked by Nathanael Berthon.

Series debutant Oliver Rowland ended up 18th after a good run was ruined by a mistake at Turn 17 although, unlike Villeneuve, the Formula Renault 3.5 champion did keep it out of the barriers.

The Formula E race from Uraguay airs today on FOX Sports 2, beginning with delayed coverage of qualifying at 12:30pm ET, with the race airing live immediately afterward at 1:30pm ET.

Originally on Autosport.com