Photo: ACI Sport
Championship leader Kean Nakamura-Berta secured pole position for the second and third races of the E4 season finale at Monza.
However, his Prema team-mate Sebastian Wheldon took pole position for race one with a perfectly timed lap in the first qualifying session.
In so doing, Wheldon became the only driver other than Nakamura-Berta to top an E4 qualifying session in the three rounds of the 2025 season.
US Racing’s Gabriel Gomez, Nakamura Berta’s closest challenger for the crown will line up third for race one but will have to fight back from sixth and 13th in the second and third races respectively.
PHM Racing’s Reno Francot, currently fourth in the standings, produced a strong performance in both sessions, notably by earning a front row start for the second race.
R-ace GP’s Alex Powell, the remaining driver still in contention for the championship, endured a miserable afternoon, and will start the three races from 18th, 28th and 26th positions.
Powell had been second quickest in a damp opening practice session on Friday morning, topped by Kabir Anurag with a 2m02.207s. Conditions improved considerably for the second session, which Nakamura-Berta headed with a 1m51.425s
Nakamura-Berta had dominated the first qualifying session from the opening lap until the final seconds, when Wheldon crossed the line to beat his team-mate’s time by 0.256 seconds.
Wheldon had barely featured until that point. With four minutes remaining, he languished back in 26th position, climbing to 10th with his sixth and penultimate lap, 1.1s adrift of Nakamura-Berta.
In the opening minutes, US Racing pair Andrija Kostic and Anurag had been the Japanese-Slovakian’s closest challengers, with Prema’s Andrea Dupe in fourth.
Nakamura-Berta set his best lap on his fourth tour, putting him briefly 1.104s ahead of Prema’s Newman Chi who had jumped up to second place. Chi dropped back to seventh next time around but improved again on his sixth lap to go back to second and within 0.272s of Nakamura-Berta.
However, with neither improving on the final lap, Gomez was able to improve up to third at the close, with Francot moving up to seventh behind Anurag and Prema’s Salim Hanna.
After an early red flag in the second session, it was Elia Weiss – the Porsche Formula E tester switching to Jenzer Motorsport from Cram this weekend – who set the early pace, setting the first sub-1m53s lap of the session, before being demoted by Francot.
After building slowly, Nakamura-Berta leapt from 23rd to first on his fifth lap, with Chi moving up to second, 0.149s back.
Francot moved back ahead, by just 0.014s, before the chequered flag was shown, but was unable to improve further on his final lap.
This time, it was Nakamura-Berta who timed his run to perfection to grab back race two pole position by 0.601s.
In a last-second surprise, US Racing’s Ary Bansal improved by 0.9s to jump up to third from 16th.
Chi held onto fourth from the US racing trio of Anurag, Gomez and Kostic. Wheldon could not repeat his last-gasp Q1 move and ended up eighth ahead of Hanna and Weiss.
The Prema awning has swelled to seven cars this weekend with the addition of 17-year-old Lucas Nanji. The Canadian Open karting champion is making his car racing debut and placed 26th and 21st in the two qualifying sessions.
Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Sebastian Wheldon Prema 1m51.440s
2 Kean Nakamura-Berta Prema +0.256s
3 Gabriel Gomez US Racing +0.380s
4 Newman Chi Prema +0.528s
5 Kabir Anurag US Racing +0.549s
6 Salim Hanna Prema +0.693s
7 Reno Francot PHM Racing +0.889s
8 Andrija Kostic US Racing +1.006s
9 Andrea Dupe Prema +1.167s
10 Maximilian Popov Van Amersfoort Racing +1.294s
Race 2 grid
1 Nakamura-Berta 1m51.272s
2 Francot +0.601s
3 Ary Bansal US Racing +0.735s
4 Chi +0.764s
5 Anurag +0.794s
6 Gomez +0.851s
7 Kostic +0.901s
8 Wheldon +0.927s
9 Hanna +0.951s
10 Elia Weiss Jenzer Motorsport +0.992s
Race 3 grid
1 Nakamura-Berta 1m51.887s
2 Chi +0.254s
3 Francot +0.263s
4 Hanna +0.343s
5 Weiss +0.400s
6 Alexander Ruta Van Amersfoort Racing +0.700s
7 Wheldon +0.700s
8 Arjen Kraeling US Racing +0.710s
9 Andy Consani R-ace GP +0.725s
10 Kostic +0.744s