Mortara back on pole for Jeddah E-Prix Race 2

Edoardo Mortara made it two poles from two at the Jeddah E-Prix after defeating Jake Dennis in the final qualifying Duel of the second race of the doubleheader weekend.

Dennis made it to the final after setting the fastest lap of the weekend in his semifinal, but an oversteer moment at Turn 10 undid the advantage the Andretti driver built up in the first sector and allowed Mortara to sweep double-header poles for the first time since Berlin 2022, his 1m15.116 lap 0.037s than Dennis.

Mahindra driver Mortara began qualifying once again by topping his Group session ahead of DS Penske’s Maximilian Guenther, Oliver Rowland, and Jean-Eric Vergne.

In his first Duel Mortara comfortably beat Vergne by 0.411s after the Citroen driver ran deep at Turn 4. He then saw off Nissan’s Rowland, who had been quicker in the first sector but Mortara was able to pull it back.

Dennis was second in his Group behind Antonio Felix da Costa and ahead of Sebastien Buemi and Nick Cassidy, then beat Envision Racing’s Buemi by 0.343s in his first Duel. In the semifinals he defeated Jaguar TCS Racing’s da Costa by 0.331s, his 1m15.060s lap not bested in any session so far this weekend.

Mortara’s pole and the subsequent three points from it moves him up to second in the championship standings, two points ahead of Cassidy and 14 adrift of Pascal Wehrlein.

Behind him and Dennis on the grid will be da Costa and Rowland, with Vergne, Guenther, Buemi, and Cassidy occupying the last of the top eight places of drivers who made it to the Duels.

Dan Ticktum will start ninth for Cupra Kiro after a last gasp lap from Guenther moved him out of the transfer spots. Lola Yamaha Abt’s Zane Maloney will start 10th after a strong Group performance, even though a late lap from Dennis dropped him out of the top four. It is his best starting position in Formula E, improving on his 13th in Miami two weeks ago.

Pascal Wehrlein will line up 11th for Porsche ahead of Andretti’s Felipe Drugovich, Jaguar’s Mitch Evans and Pepe Marti of Cupra Kiro, with Norman Nato 15th for Nissan, Nico Mueller 16th for Porsche and Taylor Barnard 17th after he was unable to improve with his last lap in the Group stage. After struggling on a new but scrubbed set of tires in FP3, the DS Penske driver opted to qualify on the tires he used in Friday's race but was unable to unlock any more performance.

Nyck de Vries qualified 18th for Mahindra but will start at the back of the grid after component changes before FP3. That moves Joel Eriksson up to 18th for Envision and Lola’s Lucas di Grassi up to 19th, who looked strong initially on his final flying lap but lost time in the final sector.