Charles Leclerc achieved Scuderia Ferrari’s 250th pole position in Formula 1 by taking the top spot for the Monaco Grand Prix. The home favourite edged out Oscar Piastri in the McLaren with Carlos Sainz only third quickest.
The Scuderia Ferrari driver was in zone throughout the Friday and Saturday sessions in Monaco, and built up his speed over the sessions to eventually set a time with one minute, 10.270 seconds – a tenth shy of Lewis Hamilton’s record pole time set in 2019.
“It was nice, the feeling after a qualifying lap is always very special here,” Leclerc said. “I’m really happy about the lap.”
“Qualifying is not everything, as much as it helps Sunday’s race we need to put it all together tomorrow. I need a good launch and when we do that, hopefully Carlos [Sainz] can follow me and put us in a 1-2. If we are 1-2 we can control the race.”
Oscar Piastri was closest challenger to Leclerc, but was just shy of taking the Ferrari in the battle for pole.
Max Verstappen struggled throughout the Monaco Grand Prix weekend with the ride of his Red Bull throughout the final two sectors, but ultimately came unstuck in the opening sector of his final lap where he narrowly survived a shunt with the Sainte Devote exit barrier. This forced the championship leader to abort his lap, and suffered a drop down the order.
Carlos Sainz took third position, while Lando Norris made it into the top four after recovering from a late breakout from the Q1 drop zone.
George Russell also outqualified Verstappen as Mercedes seemed in stronger form throughout the Monaco weekend thus far, although Lewis Hamilton could not quite jump his old title rival and had to be content with seventh.
Yuki Tsunoda took eighth over Alex Albon, who ran off-sequence in Q3 to claim a lap good enough for ninth, as Pierre Gasly completed the top ten.
Gasly knocked out his Alpine teammate Esteban Ocon in Q2 with a late lap that booked the ex-AlphaTauri driver’s place in the top ten shootout. Ocon joined Nico Hulkenberg, Daniel Ricciardo, Lance Stroll, and Kevin Magnussen in the bottom five of the qualifying session.
Fernando Alonso and Sergio Perez were the biggest losers in Q1, as both drivers were left exposed towards the end of the session by their inability to find a competitive lap.
Alonso’s final lap initially set him into P13, but he drop down the order as a host of other drivers shook off the pressure to improve at the final of the 18-minute session. This push the Aston Martin driver, who was so close in taking pole last year, down into P16.
Perez spent the majority of the session towards the back of the order and, after falling into the drop zone, could not climb out as his final lap of the session failed.
The two were separated by Logan Sargeant, as Sauber duo Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu propped up the order.
Congratulations to Charles Leclerc in taking pole position for the Monaco Grand Prix. This was an important qualifying session of the season as overtaking around Monte Carlo is near impossible so starting at the front is the perfect chance to win. With the world champion Max Verstappen only on row three, it is looking good for the Ferrari driver to triump. Bring on race day.
Monaco Grand Prix, qualifying results:
1 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:10.270
2 Oscar Piastri McLaren 1:10.424
3 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 1:10.518
4 Lando Norris Red Bull 1:10.542
5 George Russell Mercedes 1:10.543
6 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1:10.567
7 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:10.621
8 Yuki Tsunoda RB 1:10.858
9 Alexander Albon Williams 1:10.948
10 Pierre Gasly Alpine 1:11.311
11 Esteban Ocon Alpine 1:11.285
12 Nico Hulkenberg Haas 1:11.440
13 Daniel Ricciardo RB 1:11.482
14 Lance Stroll Aston Martin 1:11.563
15 Kevin Magnussen Haas 1:11.725
16 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin 1:12.019
17 Logan Sargeant Williams 1:12.020
18 Sergio Perez Red Bull 1:12.060
19 Valtteri Bottas Sauber 1:12.512
20 Zhou Guanyu Sauber 1:13.028
Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc charged his way to pole position for the Monaco Grand Prix with a stunning qualifying display on home soil, getting the better of McLaren rival Oscar Piastri and Ferrari team mate Carlos Sainz in Saturday’s all-important grid-deciding session.
Leclerc avoided any slip-ups to safely make it through Q1 and Q2 before unleashing his full potential in Q3, where he provisionally posted a time of 1m 10.418s and then bettered it with an electric 1m 10.270s – a target none of his rivals could beat.
Piastri got closest to put his McLaren a fine second, ahead of Sainz and team mate Lando Norris, while reigning world champion Max Verstappen had to settle for sixth after hitting the wall at Sainte Devote on his final qualifying lap.
It means the Dutchman’s run of successive pole positions comes to an end – having claimed the previous eight in a row and drawn level with Ayrton Senna in the all-time list – and leaves him with plenty of work to do on race day.
Mercedes drivers George Russell and Lewis Hamilton will sandwich Verstappen on the grid in fifth and seventh respectively, as RB’s Yuki Tsunoda, Williams’s Alex Albon and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly all starred to reach Q3.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/leclerc-beats-piastri-and-sainz-to-home-pole-during-monaco-qualifying.5gcWvtcM1HiFwCzNRpHcuG
Sergio Perez lurched from “finding the light” in Monaco Grand Prix practice to a “disaster” in Formula 1 qualifying, and blamed traffic and advertising stickers for his Q1 exit.
The Mexican driver managed to find his way into fifth after Saturday’s earlier FP3 session, although brusquely noted that his Red Bull was “nowhere” ahead of the run-in to qualifying.
Although Red Bull made changes to the set-up of his RB20, these were not enough to help Perez progress any further into qualifying and he ultimately shook out in a lowly 18th, only outqualifying the Saubers.
“It was a disaster because firstly on my lap I encountered a lot of traffic into Turn 6, into 7 and there were some stickers laying down on the apex of 8 so I had to avoid all of that,” Perez rued.
“I ended up losing a couple of tenths that would have been enough to get through. I was half a second off P1 so it was just a complete disaster, unfortunately.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/perez-blames-stickers-traffic-for-monaco-f1-qualifying-disaster/10615474/
Fernando Alonso suggested Formula 1 should introduce group qualifying to the Monaco Grand Prix weekend to reduce the element of luck from encountering traffic, after being eliminated in Q1.
The veteran Spaniard had set a time good enough for 13th on his final lap but was vulnerable to progress from drivers further back, culminating in a drop into the bottom five. He couldn’t recover, having already pitted, and was out of time to set a final flying run.
Citing the luck of the draw with traffic around the circuit, Alonso lent his support to a suggestion of using group qualifying to set the grid in Monaco – something that junior categories Formula 2 and Formula 3 already employ to minimise the effect of being impeded.
To avoid track conditions favouring one of two groups in F2 and F3 qualifying, the halves are ‘zipped’ together in position order – and the driver with the fastest lap time across the two groups is awarded pole, handing the leader of the opposite session second on the grid.
“I think that [group qualifying] will be great,” Alonso suggested. “I think Monaco is so exciting and so thrilling that it will be nice to see everyone’s lap live, because we miss a lot of great moments. But yeah, it’s the way it is.
“You can get lucky or unlucky. I think last year I got lucky and I made some progress in Q1, Q2 and then in Q3 you are P2 and maybe some of the big contenders that were out of Q1 or out of Q2.
“This time it was for us the bad side of it and Checo as well. I think he’s P18. This is Monaco. You need to find your luck as well and we didn’t do today.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/alonso-group-qualifying-monaco-traffic-chaos/10615491/
Max Verstappen says his Red Bull Formula 1 team is “getting found out” by its rivals after qualifying sixth in Monaco with car handling issues.
Verstappen struggled throughout practice over the many kerbs and bumps around Monaco’s tight street circuit.
And while the Red Bull team turned around its practice woes last week in Imola, there was little that could be done to give Verstappen and team-mate Sergio Perez an RB20 that could beat Ferrari or McLaren in qualifying.
Verstappen’s first flyer in Q3 was good for third, but after brushing the wall at Turn 1’s Ste Devote the Dutchman couldn’t set a second lap, ending up sixth, three tenths behind Ferrari’s polesitter Charles Leclerc.
But regardless, Verstappen said he was not in the hunt for pole with a car that couldn’t handle the bumps.
“We tried a lot of things on the car and literally nothing made it better, so then you’re just stuck,” Verstappen said when asked by Motorsport.com to explain his suspension issues.
“In the second sector we are so bad, just because I can’t touch any kerbs because it just upsets the car way too much. You just lose a lot of lap time and it’s incredibly difficult.
“We went softer stuff for everything, but the car is like a go-kart. It’s like I’m running without suspension, so it’s jumping around a lot; not absorbing any kerb strikes or bumps or camber changes.
“The last corner, I think the amount of times that I just jumped almost into the wall was really incredible.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/verstappen-red-bull-found-out-rivals/10615574/
Charles Leclerc felt he would look “completely stupid” if he missed Monaco Grand Prix pole after dominating Formula 1 practice in the principality for Ferrari.
Leclerc claimed his third career F1 pole in Monaco after edging out McLaren’s Oscar Piastri in Q3 in Monte-Carlo, having topped FP2 and FP3 on his home streets.
Leclerc said his early Monaco weekend form therefore increased the pressure on topping qualifying at an event where grid position typically translates into race results.
“In FP1, yes,” he replied in the post-qualifying press conference when asked if felt he like a pole contender from the first Friday practice laps.
“I prefer to have FP2/FP3 as positive as it was, but when you have such a good FP2/FP3 and also FP1, you go into quali knowing that you’ve got everything to lose and if you don’t take pole position that you look completely stupid.
“So, the pressure was still on quite a lot, but we managed to pull it off, Which was really nice.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/leclerc-would-have-felt-completely-stupid-without-monaco-f1-pole/10615566/