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It was a huge turnaround for Jake Dennis, as he managed to secure his first pole of the season having voiced his concerns over the Andretti's qualifying pace in recent rounds, including ahead of Round 9 in Berlin yesterday.
All change overnight, though, with the benchmark time today - set against Duels finalist and yesterday's race winner Nick Cassidy (Jaguar TCS Racing).
Semis
It was the first time that the Semi-Finals have been two pairs of teammates in the three years of the Duels format – Jaguar versus Jaguar and Andretti versus Andretti.
First up was the Jaguar duo of Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy. These teammates meet in the Duels for the second time this season. Cassidy currently leads the championship but does not have a front row start in 2024, until now. The Kiwi went quicker than Evans, to secure himself a top-two start at the circuit he secured a victory at yesterday.
Then came Andretti, with Dennis emerging victorious over Norman Nato. The Frenchman Nato is guaranteed his best start since joining Andretti for Season 10, with his previous best being fifth in Diriyah. For Dennis, he’ll be hunting the additional three points for pole as he sits fourth in the standings after yesterday’s race.
Quarter Finals
The first Duels battle was Maximilian Guenther versus Mitch Evans. Guenther has lost in the Quarter Final the last three times he’s reached the duels, and that trend continued today as Evans came out on top.
His Jaguar teammate and yesterday’s race winner, Nick Cassidy, was up next to take on Edoardo Mortara. The Mahindra driver got his and the team’s first points of the season yesterday when he placed his GEN3 machine on pole. Cassidy has never started in the top five at Tempelhof, but that changed today when he made it through. It was another strong performance from Mortara though, who is responsible for all four of Mahindra’s duel appearances this year. He'll line up eighth for Round 10.
Up next was Norman Nato versus Stoffel Vandoorne. This was Nato’s second Duels appearance of the year, whereas Vandoorne reached the Duels stages for a record-extending 27th time. Nato was the better of the two, sailing through to the Semi-Finals to an eventual third, while Vandoorne will start fifth.
The last Quarter-Final was Pascal Wehrlein and Jake Dennis, both owners of the Porsche powertrain. Neither of these drivers have ever started in the top four at Tempelhof, but it was reigning World Champion Dennis who was the faster of the two after Wehrlein clipped the wall. This is only Dennis’ third Duels appearance of the year, whereas for Wehrlein he has reached the Duels for the ninth time in 10 races this year, and for the seventh consecutive race - the Porsche driver will start seventh.
Group A
Nick Cassidy topped his group, after failing to make it through to the Duels yesterday. The Round 9 race winner had complained of issues with his car in practice earlier in the morning, but is still managing to set some impressive lap times.
Joining him in the Duels would be Maximilian Guenther, as well as Cassidy’s teammate Mitch Evans in third and yesterday’s pole man Edoardo Mortara.
Just missing out on a chance at the top four slots was the Porsche of Antonio Felix da Costa. It’s understood that the Season 6 champion is fighting for a contract renewal for Season 11 with the German giants, but he will be hoping to claw back positions during an energy-critical race this afternoon.
Oliver Rowland could only manage eighth, but qualifying position didn’t limit the Yorkshireman on Saturday when he won the ABB Driver of Progress award when he climbed from 15th to third.
Group B
It was a complete flip from yesterday for Andretti in qualifying, as both Jake Dennis and Norman Nato went to the top of the times in their group. Only 24 hours ago, both drivers qualified for the back of the grid in 21st and 22nd. Now, they finished with Dennis quickest and Norman just 0.040s behind. “That was absolutely everything,” Dennis stated as he set his lap.
Joining them in the Duels was yesterday’s front-row starter Vandoorne, and Pascal Wehrlein.
Jean-Eric Vergne (DS PENSKE) just missed out on a slot, settling for fifth. Super substitute Joel Eriksson managed to slot into six, the Swedish driver now with nine Formula E starts to his name – the best of all stand-in drivers across the qualifying session.