FE: da Costa claims Long Beach pole

Antonio Felix da Costa saw off a late challenge from Sam Bird to secure pole for today's Formula E race at Long Beach.

The Aguri racer was one of three Group 4 qualifiers to make it into the five-car Super Pole shootout, and put together a perfect lap of the shortened IndyCar course to set a target of 57.198s.

At that point, his job was already half done. Da Costa was the fourth car in line to make his qualifying run, meaning that only Bird would have an opportunity to top it. But that chance was short-lived: the Brit made a mistake at the first corner, and spent the rest of his lap in catch-up mode, although he was able to salvage enough time back to finish second-fastest.

"I'm pleased with that," said da Costa, who is driving a season one-spec car. "I've had a lot of bad luck in the last few races and we've already lost two podiums to technical problems, but the team has been strong and this was proof of that. But it means nothing at the moment - we need to do it in the race."

Bird was aware of the opportunity he'd missed, but remained optimistic about his prospects in the race.

"I'm a bit disappointed but still, it's a front row," he said. "Unfortunately we're on the dirty side for the start, but we'll see what happens."

Abt Sport's Lucas di Grassi finished up third-fastest and will share the second row with Venturi's Stephane Sarrazin, while a couple of mistakes relegated Nick Heidfeld to fifth.

The session was as much about the drivers who didn't feature as those who did. This morning's pace-setter Christian Abt topped the third qualifying group but was bundled out of the top five shootout by the rash of fast times from the group that followed, and the German will share the fourth row with series leader Sebastien Buemi.

Several drivers were left ruing small errors, but the only one whose mishap resulted in contact was Loic Duval, who booked himself a place on the last row after brushing the wall during the group qualifying phase.