Rosenqvist on pole in his second FE race

The Mahindra rookie was second-fastest in the group stage, behind Jean-Eric Vergne for Renault's customer squad Techeetah.

Rosenqvist, who set the fastest lap on his debut in Hong Kong, then outpaced defending FE champion Sebastien Buemi in the superpole to clinch pole despite his 1m21.546s being almost a second slower than Buemi's practice benchmark.

Hong Kong race winner Buemi made a small mistake at Turn 1 on his superpole lap, but still edged Sam Bird to a front-row start.

Vergne will start fifth, behind a scrappy Nelson Piquet Jr, after a "huge mistake" from the team meant he left the garage too late to get to the end of the pitlane before the red light came on.

Lucas di Grassi reckoned a small mistake at Turn 1 cost him a vital "two or three tenths" and the Abt Audi Sport man will start down in 12th.

He thought without the error he would have been in the vicinity of team-mate Daniel Abt, who will line up sixth.

Nico Prost will start seventh in the second Renault e.dams entry, with NextEV's Hong Kong front-row starter Oliver Turvey and Andretti duo Robin Frijns and Antonio Felix da Costa completing the top 10.

Jaguar's muted start to life in FE continued with Mitch Evans qualifying 15th and Adam Carroll ending up slowest after a mistake at Turn 1 on his full-power lap.