Lando Norris will start the Monaco Grand Prix in pole position for McLaren beating the home favourite Charles Leclerc and championship leader Oscar Piastri to the top grid spot at the famous street circuit.
Norris looked set to lose out to P1 to Leclerc, who had led every practice session, after the second round of laps in Q3. But continuing on his set soft tyres Norris found another tenth and a half to clinch the top grid slot with his third flying lap, beating last year’s race winner by 0.109 seconds.
Lando’s time of one minute, 09.954 seconds lap was a new track record around the 3.3km venue, and earned the McLaren driver’s first pole since the opening Australian Grand Prix.
Norris had also led the first run from teammate Oscar Piastri, with the championship leader eventually settling for third on the grid after losing time in the Nouvelle Chicane.
Lewis Hamilton was fourth on the grid for Ferrari, four tenths behind, but the seven-time world champion may still be demoted after impeding Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in Q1. Verstappen could only manage fifth on the grid for Red Bull, seven tenths behind pole position.
Isack Hadjar was an excellent sixth for Racing Bulls, overcoming two taps with the wall in free practice to end up as the most impressive rookie on the difficult street circuit.
Fernando Alonso was seventh for Aston Martin, just 0.001 seconds behind Hadjar, with Esteban Ocon also putting in a solid effort for Haas to clinch eighth. Liam Lawson took ninth, with Williams driver Alex Albon completing the top ten.
Norris and Piastri led the running in the early part of qualifying, before Leclerc eventually topped Q1 with a time of one minute, 11.229 seconds.
Most cars were fuelled for a longer stint, using cool-down laps to keep the softs in the window. The narrow margins and significant track evolution meant none of the frontrunners could afford to stay in the garage at the end.
There was pressure on Lewis Hamilton to advance, having dropped to P15, but the seven-time world champion did enough to make it to Q2.
It was Gabriel Bortoleto who was the first to miss out in P16, followed by Oliver Bearman, who will start at the back due to a ten-place grid penalty for ignoring red flags in FP2.
Pierre Gasly was out in P18 ahead of Lance Stroll and Franco Colapinto, but the Alpine driver will move ahead of Stroll due to a one-place penalty for Stroll.
The session was also over for Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who squeezed through in P15 but then tagged the wall at the Nouvelle Chicane and suffered terminal damage on his Mercedes, bringing out a late red flag.
There was more drama for Mercedes at the start of Q2 when George Russell reported a loss of power and then ground to a halt in the tunnel with a suspected electrical issue, meaning both Silver Arrows will start in P14 and P15.
After a lengthy red flag to get rid of the stricken Mercedes, Norris led the running ahead of Verstappen and Leclerc, but times continued to tumble rapidly.
The four cars from Ferrari and McLaren continued to trade blows at the top, with Verstappen third until a brilliant last-ditch lap by Albon that put him ahead of the four-time champion.
Albon’s teammate Carlos Sainz was less successful, blaming a lack of grip on the softs as he was pipped to the final Q3 berth by Haas driver Ocon.
Yuki Tsunoda was also out in P12, complaining about impeding from Isack Hadjar, with Nico Hulkenberg and the Mercedes cars eliminated as well.
Sunday’s 78-lap Monaco Grand Prix will be very interesting as there will be a mandatory to run three different sets of tyres, which will force drivers to make two pitstops to open up strategic options. Hopefully this will make the racing exciting as overtaking is very limited.
Monaco Grand Prix, qualifying positions:
1 Lando Norris McLaren 1:09.954
2 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:10.063
3 Oscar Piastri McLaren 1:10.129
4 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari 1:10.382
5 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1:10.669
6 Isack Hadjar Racing Bulls 1:10.923
7 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin 1:10.924
8 Esteban Ocon Haas 1:10.942
9 Liam Lawson Racing Bulls 1:11.129
10 Alexander Albon Williams 1:11.213
11 Carlos Sainz Williams 1:11.362
12 Yuki Tsunoda Williams 1:11.415
13 Nico Hulkenberg Sauber 1:11.596
14 George Russell Mercedes 1:11.507
15 Andrea Kimi Antonelli Mercedes 1:11.880
16 Gabriel Bortoleto Sauber 1:11.902
17 Pierre Gasly Alpine 1:11.994
18 Franco Colapinto Alpine 1:12.597
19 Lance Stroll Aston Martin 1:12.563*
20 Oliver Bearman Haas 1:11.979**
*Stroll penalised one grid position for causing a collision during practice.
**Bearman penalised ten grid positions for overtaking under red flags in practice.
Lando Norris charged to pole position during Saturday afternoon’s Qualifying session for the Monaco Grand Prix, getting the better of home favourite Charles Leclerc and McLaren team mate Oscar Piastri in a dramatic conclusion to the action.
With run plans varying at the end of the Q3 phase, the McLaren drivers managed to extract two laps from their final sets of soft tyres – Norris producing a 1m 09.954s to deny Leclerc, who had briefly held the top spot.
Piastri settled for third, followed by Leclerc’s Ferrari team mate, Lewis Hamilton, who recovered well from his crash in final practice, while Max Verstappen could only go fifth for Red Bull after a challenging end to Qualifying.
Isack Hadjar was one of the stars of the session to put his Racing Bulls machine sixth, ahead of the similarly impressive Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso, Haas of Esteban Ocon and team mate Liam Lawson, while Williams’ Alex Albon rounded out the top 10.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/norris-beats-leclerc-and-piastri-to-pole-with-last-gasp-lap-in-monaco-gp.4puK2BTt1mZoCvSevSPJe8
Lando Norris put his Monaco Grand Prix pole result down to “driving smarter” rather than quicker, believing this was the first time since Formula 1’s 2025 season opener in Australia that he put together a satisfactory Q3 run.
McLaren chose to give Norris and team-mate Oscar Piastri two runs on their final set of tyres, which Norris pressed into service to first set a time of 1m10.125s, before improving to 1m09.954s on his second attempt and setting a new track record.
This ensured Norris collected his first pole since the season opener in Australia, ending a string of disappointing Saturdays that saw the Briton come under fire for failing to maximise the performance of his car over a single lap.
Norris said that his performance had come from a “mix” of different elements, including both improvements with the car and from himself. He said he is just as quick as he has been this season, but made the most of that in Monaco with his driving style.
“There’s probably a small mix of both of these things: from the car, and it being Monaco and a very different layout, and a very different style of driving that’s needed here,” Norris explained.
“It’s a lot more risk and commitment rather than just absolute car balance in a way. But there’s also things that I’ve been working on to improve to do a better job again – not because I’m not at the pace, but because I’m never putting it together come Q3.
“Today was probably the first time since Australia that I’ve really put it all together. It’s not like I’m driving quicker, I’m driving in a better way, in a smarter way. There’s lot of work that’s gone on.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/lando-norris-driving-smarter-not-quicker-key-to-f1-monaco-gp-pole/10726240/
Charles Leclerc feels he has missed a unique opportunity to win in 2025, as Ferrari proved more competitive at the Monaco Grand Prix than elsewhere on the Formula 1 calendar.
Leclerc took provisional pole around the historic streets of Monte Carlo after the second barrage of Q3 runs, ahead of both McLarens. But both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri opted to go for an extra flyer on their final run, and while Piastri had a messy lap, Norris was able to find the pace to snatch pole away from Leclerc.
Leclerc felt there wasn’t much more he could have done to defeat Norris, but he was still “very frustrated” because he felt this was Ferrari’s first competitive weekend of the year, and a pole would have therefore given the Monegasque driver a chance to win a race this season, Ferrari having been unable to fight for the win elsewhere.
“There’s always something more to be done. But, at the end of the day, this was the best we could do. I think the lap was really good,” Leclerc said after losing out to Norris’s track-record lap by 0.109s.
“The first lap was a little bit of a shame because when you have a first good lap that gives you a bit more confidence for the second round. I couldn’t have that. I had sector two traffic, but it’s the way it is.
“Just obviously very frustrated. We know that we don’t quite have the car to go for wins this year. But this weekend, the car felt good. And starting second here is going to be tricky to then take that first place.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/charles-leclerc-frustrated-just-missing-pole-f1-monaco-gp/10726156/
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri admitted to struggling on the streets of Monaco in qualifying for the grand prix, having put his car in third position for tomorrow’s Formula 1 race after appearing to clip the wall at almost every turn on the streets of the Principality.
The Australian’s weekend got off to a slow start yesterday when he hit the barriers head on at Sainte Devote in Monaco. Since then, his collisions with the circuit’s walls have gotten less serious, but continued to plague almost every session Piastri ran in.
This continued in qualifying and Piastri clipped the barriers again multiple times, leading the McLaren driver to ask his team to check the car several times over team radio.
After the session, the current championship leader admitted that it capped off a “messy” weekend for him.
“I think I’ve hit more walls this weekend than I have in my whole career, so it’s been untidy,” the McLaren driver said after qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix.
“Yeah, just been struggling to get into the groove a bit, I think in qualifying I was much happier with things and I felt pretty good. But, yeah, we’ve been doing some digging this weekend, and to come out with this result is a decent effort.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/oscar-piastri-couldnt-keep-off-the-wall-in-messy-f1-monaco-gp-qualifying-/10726178/
Lewis Hamilton has joined the list of penalised drivers for the Monaco Grand Prix after the stewards determined that he impeded Max Verstappen during Qualifying.
Hamilton was shown on television footage to be moving slowly at the entry to Massenet in the opening Q1 phase when Verstappen – having just started a hot lap – approached at much higher speed.
Verstappen changed his line to avoid Hamilton and swore over the radio in response, before both drivers progressed to Q2 and eventually Q3, where they secured respective P5 and P4 positions on the grid for Sunday’s race.
However, after reviewing the incident post-session, the stewards have handed Hamilton a three-place grid drop, meaning he falls to seventh – promoting Verstappen, Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso.
Hamilton joins Ollie Bearman and Lance Stroll in being penalised – the Haas rookie docked 10 places for a red flag breach in practice and the Aston Martin racer sanctioned twice for an FP1 clash with Charles Leclerc and an impeding incident in Qualifying.
“Car 44 (Hamilton) was on a slow lap and off the racing line as he was approaching Turn 2,” read the stewards’ decision document. “Car 1 (Verstappen) was approaching Car 44 on a push lap.
“The team first informed the driver of Car 44 that Car 1 was on a fast lap. Then they sent another message saying that Car 1 was ‘slowing down’ when in fact Car 1 was always on a push lap and was not ‘slowing down’ as suggested by the team. This resulted in Car 44 speeding up and moving into the racing line of Car 1 entering Turn 3.
“Car 1 had to react to Car 44 appearing to move into the racing line. This meant that Car 1 had to move off the usual racing line and the push lap had to be aborted by Car 1.
“We carefully examined the racing line taken by Car 1 in previous laps at the same area and determined that Car 44 did in fact enter the racing line that Car 1 used in previous push laps. This put it beyond doubt that Car 1 was impeded.
“The driver of Car 44 expressed his displeasure at the incorrect message from the team immediately after the incident. During the hearing, the fact of the team’s incorrect message leading to the incident was accepted by the driver of Car 44.
“As with previous incidents of this nature where a driver has received inaccurate or incomplete information resulting in a car impeding another, the fact that the radio message was the cause of the impeding does not amount to a mitigating factor.
“We therefore impose the standard penalty of a drop of three grid positions.”
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/breaking-hamilton-hit-with-three-place-monaco-gp-grid-drop-for-blocking.6YISvHjNEfiCzcm1CLtiq4