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Mortara takes pole for second Tokyo E-Prix race
Edoardo Mortara went one better than he did on Saturday to claim pole position for the second race of the Tokyo E-Prix, tying the record for most poles in a season.
The Mahindra driver was the favorite for pole on Saturday after topping the first two practice sessions before Jake Dennis beat him in the Duels final for the first race of the weekend. This time he took the top spot in convincing fashion, his final time of 1m 12.341 being 0.677s quicker than Antonio Felix da Costa.
Mortara topped the second Group session ahead of his teammate Nyck de Vries, then beat Oliver Rowland – who before this weekend was the only driver to take a pole in Tokyo – in his first Duel. That set up a Semifinal encounter with Saturday race winner Dan Ticktum, who was beaten by 0.160s.
Jaguar TCS Racing driver da Costa also topped his Group and defeated a Nissan driver in his first Duel – in this case, Norman Nato. He then defeated Taylor Barnard to set up the final with Mortara.
With his fourth pole position of the season Mortara equals Jean-Eric Vergne's record from the 2017-18 season. Behind him and da Costa on the front row of the grid will be Ticktum and Barnard, with de Vries and Nato occupying the third row of the grid.
Mitch Evans and Rowland will start seventh and eighth as the last of the drivers who made it through to the Duels, with Pepe Mart narrowly missing out to secure ninth on the grid.
Next up will be the Porsches of Nico Mueller and Pascal Wehrlein who after both retiring from Saturday's race will be looking for a much stronger race on Sunday, although starting outside the top-10 on a narrow track is not the start to the day they would have wanted.
Next up will be the Citroens of Vergne and Nick Cassidy in 12th and 13th, followed by Sebastien Buemi, Maximilian Guenther, Felipe Drugovich and Zane Maloney. Saturday polesitter Dennis will start a lowly 18th after late laps from his teammate Drugovich and then Evans knocked him out of a transfer spot from the Groups. Lucas di Grassi and Joel Eriksson will occupy the back row of the grid.
Dominik Wilde
Dominik often jokes that he was born in the wrong country – a lover of NASCAR and IndyCar, he covered both in a past life as a junior at Autosport in the UK, but he’s spent most of his career to date covering the sliding and flying antics of the U.S.’ interpretation of rallycross. Rather fitting for a man that says he likes “seeing cars do what they’re not supposed to do”, previously worked for a car stunt show, and once even rolled a rally car with Travis Pastrana. He was also comprehensively beaten in a kart race by Sebastien Loeb once, but who hasn’t been?
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