Buenos Aires ePrix: Bird grabs maiden pole, Buemi spins

Having led the way in opening practice, DS Virgin driver Bird was second fastest in the opening qualifying group, three tenths behind pacesetter Stephane Sarrazin.

But the Brit turned up the pace in the five-car superpole session, recording a 1m09.420s to put himself three tenths of a second clear of nearest rival Nicolas Prost.

"The aim was a podium, and now that is certainly a reality," said Bird. "We’ll look at the data from practice and work on things for the race, Nico [Prost] is close and their car is not too bad, as we have seen."

Prost just held off a charging Antonio Felix da Costa for second place by a hundredth of a second, with the Portuguese driver booking his superpole slot with a superb lap in the fourth and final group.

Venturi driver Sarrazin couldn't replicate his earlier pace in the shootout, however, and will start fourth, ahead of teammate and Formula E debutant Mike Conway.

Disaster for Buemi

After topping second practice, points leader Buemi relegated himself to the back of the grid with a spin during his hot lap in the second group.

The Swiss driver locked the rear brakes of his Renault e.dams machine approaching the Turn 5 hairpin – and will be forced to start the race from 18th and last as a result.

“I won’t find excuses, I just made a mistake,” Buemi said. “Last year I was on pole; this year I am at the back, so we will see what we can do.”

“Realistically there is no way to win, but hopefully I can get some good points for the championship.”

Lucas di Grassi, meanwhile, failed to capitalise fully on title rival Buemi’s woes, missing out on superpole with a scrappy lap in the final group.

The Brazilian starts seventh, behind Robin Frijns but ahead of Abt Audi Sport teammate Daniel Abt, Nelson Piquet Jr and Jerome d’Ambrosio.

There was further drama in the third qualifying group, as both Bruno Senna and Salvador Duran hit trouble on their flying laps.

Senna took too much kerb at the final chicane, bouncing into the outside wall, while Duran smashed into the barriers with a lock-up at Turn 4, destroying his front-right suspension.

The pair will start 16th and 17th respectively, just ahead of Buemi, while Jean-Eric Vergne starts 15th having just been declared fit to compete.

Qualifying results:

Pos	Driver	Team	Time
1	Sam Bird	Virgin Racing	1:09.420
2	Nicolas Prost	DAMS	1:09.751
3	Antonio Felix da Costa	Team Aguri	1:09.761
4	Stéphane Sarrazin	Venturi	1:10.298
5	Mike Conway	Venturi	1:12.391
6	Robin Frijns	Andretti Autosport	1:09.616
7	Lucas di Grassi	Audi Sport Team Abt	1:09.677
8	Daniel Abt	Audi Sport Team Abt	1:09.814
9	Nelson Piquet Jr.	China Racing	1:09.931
10	Jérôme d'Ambrosio	Dragon Racing	1:10.067
11	Oliver Turvey	China Racing	1:10.126
12	Loic Duval	Dragon Racing	1:10.130
13	Nick Heidfeld	Mahindra Racing	1:10.321
14	Simona de Silvestro	Andretti Autosport	1:10.446
15	Jean-Eric Vergne	Virgin Racing	1:10.581
16	Bruno Senna	Mahindra Racing	1:11.306
17	Salvador Duran	Team Aguri	1:13.256
18	Sébastien Buemi	DAMS	1:19.421