Rome E-Prix: Vandoorne outduels Frijns to take pole for Mercedes

Having been drawn in the same opening group stage together, Vandoorne and Frijns had logged exactly the same time to get through to the duels, hinting at a close encounter between the two.

Vandoorne kept it clean in the final, as Frijns endured a heart-in-mouth moment as he stopped just in time to make it around the second corner - miraculously losing only a smidgen of time to the Belgian.

But Frijns continued to look considerably more wayward in the following clutch of corners, meaning Vandoorne was able to keep his nose ahead to beat his rival by 0.35s.

Vandoorne's semi-final against Antonio Felix da Costa was an incredibly close bout and, no sooner had the Belgian looked on the cusp of a break against the DS Techeetah driver after the second sector, he took the Turn 12-13 chicane aggressively and lost his margin - with da Costa marginally ahead.

But Vandoorne held his nerve and kept it clean in the final array of 90-degree corners - sitting a mere 0.015s to the good over da Costa to stamp his card into the final.

Da Costa was the second Techeetah that Vandoorne had to brush aside on his road to the final; Jean-Eric Vergne had looked rapid in the lead-up to his quarter-final battle, but was unable to get dialled into the lap and was bested by four tenths of a second by Vandoorne.

Frijns, meanwhile, beat Andre Lotterer in his quarter-final duel - the Porsche driver relieved to make it into the top eight places after missing part of the second practice session having sustained damage at the chicane.

That set up an all-Dutch semi-final between Frijns and Nyck de Vries, who had seen off Group A topper Jake Dennis in their quarter-final duel as the Avalanche Andretti driver struggled to get his Michelin tyres into the