Antonio Felix da Costa took pole for the second Berlin Formula E race by over four-tenths to continue his domination of the season finale while his title rivals faltered.
The championship leader posted the fastest time of the reversed Tempelhof Airport circuit with a 1.06.442s to leave Superpole rival Sebastien Buemi with little response in second.
Alex Lynn surprised the Formula E paddock to take third place on the grid for Mahindra in only his second race for the team.
De Vries will line up fourth, ahead of Envision Virgin Racing’s Robin Frijns, after he improved on the sturdy but unremarkable effort from Audi driver Lucas di Grassi.
Buemi’s team-mate Oliver Rowland was the first driver to miss out on the top-six shootout after Lynn’s immense final group flying lap.
Combined with Frijns’ stellar group three-run, which assured him of a best qualifying result of the season, it shuffled defending champion Vergne out of Superpole contention in eighth.
Sam Bird will start the race from ninth in front Venturi driver Edoardo Mortara, 11th was the return for BMW Andretti’s Maximilian Guenther and Andre Lotterer – second in the first race – could only land 12th for Porsche.
Stoffel Vandoorne, the first driver to set a full power 250kW run, was well off his Mercedes stablemate de Vries down in 13th.
A downbeat Alex Sims could only manage 15th, with his woes compounded by a 20-place grid drop for a battery change that was required due to damage caused by his team.
Oliver Turvey delivered a great effort in 16th for the struggling NIO 333 team, which put the Briton ahead of both Jaguar drivers.
Mitch Evans, Da Costa’s closest threat in the points but now 44 points adrift, could only land his Jaguar in 17th having also brought up the rear in the group one stage.
Double DTM champion Rene Rast had to watch team-mate di Grassi spearhead the superpole charge for Audi after a sector one mistake put him 1.4s off the pace and last.