page_title: 2018 Santiago ePrix
section_title: Qualifying
hierarchical_section_title: 2018 Santiago ePrix / Qualifying
caption_attribution_description: English: FIA World Endurance Championship 2012 Rd.7 6 Hours of Fuji: André Lotterer (Audi Sport Team Joest)
context_page_description: The 2018 Santiago ePrix was a Formula E electric car race held at the Santiago Street Circuit in the Chilean capital city of Santiago on 3 February 2018. It was the fourth round of the 2017–18 Formula E season and the inaugural running of the event. The 37-lap race was won by Techeetah driver Jean-Éric Vergne from pole position. Vergne's teammate André Lotterer finished second and e.Dams-Renault driver Sébastien Buemi was third.
  Vergne won pole position by recording the fastest lap in qualifying, and held off Nelson Piquet Jr. early in the race, which was neutralised for four laps after two cars were left stranded at the side of the track from getting involved in separate accidents on the first lap. Vergne kept the lead after every driver made their mandatory pit stops to enter into a second car and his teammate Lotterer passed Piquet for second. Vergne, who was saving electrical energy due to a loss in pit-to-car radio communication, held off his teammate Lotterer for the rest of the race to win for the second time in Formula E and Lotterer finished second to achieve the first one-two finish in series history.
context_section_description: Saturday's afternoon qualifying session ran for an hour and was divided into four groups of five cars. Each group was determined by a lottery system and was permitted six minutes of on-track activity. All drivers were limited to two timed laps with one at maximum power. The fastest five overall competitors in the four groups participated in a "Super Pole" session with one driver on the track at any time going out in reverse order from fifth to first. Each of the five drivers was limited to one timed lap and the starting order was determined by the competitor's fastest times (Super Pole from first to fifth, and group qualifying from sixth to twentieth). The driver and team who recorded the fastest time were awarded three points towards their respective championships. Car grip appeared to be affected as track temperatures rose between second practice and qualifying and saw many drivers glancing or narrowly avoiding the tyre barriers.
  In the first group of five runners, Buemi was the early pace setter with Abt second. Heidfeld took third and António Félix da Costa fourth. Evans locked his brakes, meaning he drove straight into the turn three barrier, and began from the tenth row of the grid. Bird was the fastest driver in the second group, followed by Vergne in second and Piquet third. Rosenqvist was fourth-quickest after he made errors, and Mortara locked his front left wheel entering the hairpin, meaning he was the slowest driver in the second group. Lynn led the third group, going a tenth of a second faster than Turvey. Prost was third-fastest while López and Engel rounded out the third group's slowest two drivers. Di Grassi was the initial pace setter in group four until Lotterer surprised everyone by setting the fastest overall lap in group qualifying at 1 minute, 18.796 seconds. Jérôme d'Ambrosio (Dragon), Tom Blomqvist (Andretti) and Luca Filippi (NIO) rounded out group four's top five.
  At the end of group qualifying, Lotterer, di Grassi, Bird, Vergne and Buemi qualified for super pole. Vergne took his second pole position of the season and the sixth of his career with a time of 1 minute, 19.161 seconds, and was joined on the grid's front row by Buemi. Di Grassi was unable to replicate his pace from group qualifying and was third. Lotterer hit a bump in the tarmac surface entering turn one, and broke his front wing against the turn one wall. Lotterer slowed for the rest of his lap as the front wing slowly lodged itself under his car's bodywork. Bird lost control of the rear of his car entering the turn five and six double-right hand turn through carrying too much speed into the corner. Bird struck a TecPro barrier with his vehicle's rear but was able to drive back to pit lane for a replacement rear wing and the session was briefly red-flagged. After qualifying, di Grassi was automatically demoted ten places on the grid for changing his inverter, and Prost dropped two places for exceeding the number of permitted laps. The rest of the grid lined up after penalties as Piquet, Lynn, Turvey, López, Abt, Prost, Engel, d'Ambrosio, di Grassi, Rosenqvist, Heidfeld, Félix da Costa, Mortara, Blomqvist, Filippi and Evans.
caption: André Lotterer (pictured in 2012) qualified fourth despite damaging his car's rear wing at the start of his super pole lap.
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