Bird overcomes damage to pole in Marrakesh E-Prix qualifying

Sam Bird overcame adversity to take pole in the Marrakesh E-Prix but once again there was no place in the top ten for Felipe Massa and Stoffel Vandoorne.

Bird had to deal with car damage after he was caught up in an incident between Tom Dillmann’s NIO and his teammate Robin Frijns.

The Brit was hit by his teammate after Dillmann’s breaks failed, forcing him into the back of Frijns who subsequently hit Bird.

Frijns went on to qualify eighth but Dillman was further down in 18th and is being investigated for his role in the crash.

It didn’t seem to affect Bird who went on to top Super Pole with a time of 1:17:489 ahead of Jean Eric Vergne despite running diffuser damage throughout the session.

It wasn’t such a successful day for the former F1 stars, Felipe Massa and Stoffel Vandoorne who qualified 15th and 22nd respectively.

Massa and his Venturi team decided to go with a fresh powertrain for the E-Prix whilst Vandoorne was unlucky seeing after his qualifying was brought to a premature end with his HWA Racelab car shutting down during his hot lap.