Formula E

Qualifying in Monaco: Rowland takes pole in the rain chaos without a final duel, Bird crashes heavily

Timo Pape

Timo Pape

Paddy McGrath / Spacesuit Media

The pole-sitter for Sunday's Formula E race in Monaco is Oliver Rowland! In a completely crazy and rainy qualifying session, both DS drivers had initially left the track in the semi-final, which meant that the final duel had to be cancelled. Nyck de Vries, who had actually been eliminated in the other semi-final, finished second. Sam Bird had a serious accident in the group phase, but apparently escaped unharmed.

Group A: Racing like on ice

It had rained heavily before qualifying, so the session took place on a wet track. Group A featured some fast qualifiers in Oliver Rowland, Mitch Evans, Nyck de Vries, Edo Mortara and Dan Ticktum. The drivers struggled extremely and even lurched back and forth on the straights. Rowland braked late in turn 5 and had to turn round, and a little later he also missed the Nouvelle Chicane. The lap times were more than half a minute off the track record. Although the laps got faster, it was still too early to tell who would qualify.

One best time after another appeared on the timesheet. Then the time ran out and the decisive laps followed. De Vries did it best, qualifying first with a lead of seven tenths of a second! Antonio Felix da Costa, Rowland and Ticktum also made it into the top four, while Zane Maloney narrowly missed out after a strong performance and finished fifth, just ahead of his team-mate Lucas di Grassi. He was followed by Jake Hughes, Norman Nato, Evans, Robin Frijns and Edo Mortara.

Group B: Bird hits "his" wall again

Group B also had to deal with difficult conditions, but the track dried out and gradually became faster. Some "heavyweights" such as Pascal Wehrlein, Taylor Barnard and Jake Dennis also lined up in the second pack of eleven. However, the first exclamation mark came from Jean-Eric Vergne, who was 2.3 seconds faster than everyone else four minutes before the end. Nico Müller hit the brakes late at "St. Devote" and had to turn round.

Three minutes before the end of the session, there was a crash, and it was a big one: just like last year, Sam Bird hit the TecPro barrier in turn 1. He first crashed into the wall on the left and then skidded straight ahead at relatively high speed. The result was a hard head-on collision. His McLaren suffered major damage to the front end, but Bird was able to get out under his own power and at first glance appeared uninjured - in contrast to last year, when he broke his wrist. There was a lengthy red flag stoppage to recover the McLaren.

After an interruption of around a quarter of an hour, the race restarted with 2:46 minutes remaining. The drivers therefore only had one more warm-up lap and then one decisive attempt. In fact, there were still a number of improvements. Sebastien Buemi delivered a magic lap and won the group by almost seven tenths of a second! Vergne finished second ahead of Stoffel Vandoorne and Max Günther - jubilation in the Penske box. Wehrlein narrowly missed out in fifth ahead of Dennis and Nick Cassidy. Behind them were Barnard - pole-sitter on Saturday - David Beckmann, Nico Müller and Bird.

Overview: Formula E qualifying in Monaco

Quarter-finals

VF1: Oliver Rowland vs Antonio Felix da Costa

Rowland opened the first quarter-final duel with a significantly faster first sector than Felix da Costa. In the second part of the track, the championship leader increased his virtual lead to more than nine tenths of a second, and he added a similar cushion in sector 3. In the end, Rowland was more than 1.4 seconds faster than Felix da Costa and deservedly advanced to the semi-finals!

VF2: Dan Ticktum vs Nyck de Vries

Now it was time for an interesting duel. De Vries got off to the better start, and did so clearly. In sector 2, however, Ticktum was a whole second faster than the world champion from season 7 - a large gap! In the final section, Ticktum made a major mistake by missing the harbour chicane, so that his gap grew again to almost five seconds. In his typical manner, he swore on the radio. De Vries ultimately progressed to the next round without much trouble.

VF3: Stoffel Vandoorne vs. Jean-Eric Vergne

The duel between the former DS team-mates started with similarly large gaps: Vergne was almost a second faster than Vandoorne in sector 1. In the second part of the circuit, the two were on an equal footing before the final sector went to Vergne again with a slight advantage - even though he had hit the wall on the right at the harbour! As a result, the Frenchman progressed to the semi-finals with a commanding lead of just under eight tenths of a second.

VF4: Maximilian Günther vs Sebastien Buemi

Buemi, who had reached the duel phase for the first time this season, lost out to Günther in sector 1. The German was also slightly faster than the Swiss in the second measured section. Günther completed his lap unchallenged and beat Buemi by almost seven tenths of a second - both DS Penske in the semi-finals!

Semi-final

HF1: Nyck de Vries vs Oliver Rowland

The first semi-final was a curious one: Firstly, de Vries missed the braking point in turn 1 and had to turn in the run-off area - probably because it had started to rain again. Then the exact same thing happened to Rowland, meaning that de Vries was suddenly back in the game. However, the Briton had returned to the track faster, meaning that de Vries was unable to close the gap. Rowland crossed the finish line with a 2.5-second lead.

HF2: Max Günther vs Jean-Eric Vergne

In the duel between the team-mates, Vergne got off to the slightly better start as the track became wetter again. The second section of the track also went to Vergne because Günther braked in the harbour chicane and had to take a shortcut. However, Vergne had the same fate, he just returned to the track faster! In the end, the Frenchman finished the lap with a two-second lead. However, both lap times were cancelled due to shortcuting.

Final: cancelled!

Then things got even crazier: the race director announced on the radio that there would be no final duel - for the first time in the history of Formula E! The reason was that neither DS driver had set an official lap time in the semi-final, which would have left Rowland without an opponent in the final. Rowland was therefore declared the pole-sitter! De Vries moved up to second place on the grid. Günther will start ahead of his team-mate because he had set his cancelled lap time first - even though he was slower.

The seventh race of the 2024/25 Formula E World Championship season will take place on Saturday afternoon at 3 pm (CEST). e-Formula.news will cover the race as usual in the Formula E live ticker - ideal as a "second screen" for real fans!

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