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Rachit Thukral

Jakarta E-Prix: Maserati's Gunther beats Dennis to maiden pole

Having been quickest in the two practice sessions across Friday evening and Saturday morning, Gunther was also untouchable in qualifying as he defeated Andretti’s Jake Dennis with a time of 1m08.141s.

Gunther was able to pull an advantage of 0.368s in the early stages of the final, with Dennis only fractionally closing the gap in the track's second sector.

The gap between the two swelled to 0.423s at one stage and, although it came down again as they completed the final sector, Gunther was still able to secure pole position with a comfortable margin of 0.341s.

The 25-year-old had previously gone head-to-head with team-mate Edoardo Mortara in the quarter finals, Gunther winning that duel by three tenths of a second.

This set him up against Pascal Wehrlein in the semis, but despite the Porsche driver enjoying a renaissance after a difficult run of results, Gunther was able to get the better of his fellow German and guarantee himself a front row spot.

Meanwhile, Dennis had eased through quarter finals with a half-a-second advantage over Abt’s Robin Frijns, before defeating Jean-Eric Vergne (DS Penske) in the semis by over three tenths of a second to earn a place in the finals.

Wehrlein will start from third on the grid behind Dennis, with Vergne and his team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne due to line up fourth and fifth.

Mortara will join Vandoorne on the third row of the grid, with Frijns an excellent seventh for Abt after progressing to the duels for the first time in dry conditions in 2023.

Jake Dennis, Andretti Autosport, Porsche 99 X Electric Gen3 (Photo by: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images)

McLaren’s Rene Rast will start from eighth as the slowest of the duel runners, while Nico Muller proved his team-mate Frijns’ performance wasn’t a fluke as he qualified ninth - the Swiss securing only his second top-10 start of the season.

Both Envision cars were eliminated in the group stages, with championship leader Nick Cassidy qualifying 10th and team-mate Sebastien Buemi ending up three places further down in 13th.

Last year’s winner Mitch Evans also failed to progress to the duels, the Jaguar driver finishing sixth in the group to end up 11th on the grid behind Kiwi compatriot Cassidy.

Another high-profile driver to struggle in qualifying was Porsche’s Antonio Felix da Costa, who will take the start from 15th after finishing eighth in his group.

Sam Bird ended up 16th, five places behind his team-mate Evans.

Jakarta E-Prix Qualifying results:

Cla # Driver Time Gap
1 7 Germany Maximilian Gunther 1'08.141  
2 27 United Kingdom Jake Dennis 1'08.482 0.341
3 94 Germany Pascal Wehrlein 1'08.646 0.505
4 25 France Jean-Eric Vergne 1'08.740 0.599
5 1 Belgium Stoffel Vandoorne 1'08.588 0.447
6 48 Switzerland Edoardo Mortara 1'08.704 0.563
7 4 Netherlands Robin Frijns 1'08.957 0.816
8 58 Germany René Rast 1'09.205 1.064
9 51 Switzerland Nico Müller 1'09.191 1.050
10 37 New Zealand Nick Cassidy 1'09.273 1.132
11 9 New Zealand Mitch Evans 1'09.202 1.061
12 23 France Sacha Fenestraz 1'09.333 1.192
13 16 Switzerland Sébastien Buemi 1'09.216 1.075
14 33 United Kingdom Dan Ticktum 1'09.339 1.198
15 13 Portugal Antonio Felix da Costa 1'09.280 1.139
16 10 United Kingdom Sam Bird 1'09.410 1.269
17 17 France Norman Nato 1'09.405 1.264
18 3 Brazil Sergio Sette Camara 1'09.645 1.504
19 36 Germany David Beckmann 1'09.470 1.329
20 5 United Kingdom Jake Hughes 1'09.933 1.792
21 11 Brazil Lucas di Grassi 1'09.562 1.421
22 8 Spain Roberto Merhi 1'10.560 2.419
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