Reigning Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup champion Rene Rast bounced back from a quiet start to his title defence to take pole position in Monaco. The German Veltins Lechner Racing driver will hope it leads to a repeat of his result around the streets of the Principality from last year, where he claimed pole position and then went on to win.
“It's a great feeling to be back on pole,” said Rast. “The qualifying session was exciting, which is par for the course in Monaco. We had a lot of traffic on the track. I was much faster with my second set of tyres than with the first and I'm feeling very optimistic about my chances in the race. To start from pole in Monaco has a greater advantage than on any other track on the calendar.”
Nick Tandy qualified second for Konrad Motorsport, 0.313 seconds behind Rast.
“It's very important to start from the first row in Monaco, so I'm very pleased with my qualifying result,” said Tandy. “We only narrowly missed out on pole. I was very quick in a couple of laps, especially in the first two sectors, but you're lucky if you escape the traffic here without a hitch. It's a shame we weren't fast enough for pole today.”
Third was Kuba Giermaziak, the Polish Verva Racing Team driver showing his Barcelona pace was no flash in the pan by repeating his qualifying result from one week ago.
“That was a very good qualifying,” declared Giermaziak afterwards. “I didn't actually think we'd do so well on such a difficult track. Like in Barcelona, we showed that we're fast during free practice, but still we were a little surprised with third place. We're heading into the race feeling confident. If I can also score third in the race we'll all be very happy.”
Points leader and Barcelona race winner Sean Edwards will line up fourth on the grid, one place ahead of his Team Abu Dhabi by tolimit teammate and fellow Monte Carlo resident Jeroen Bleekemolen. The double Supercup champion's brother Sebastiaan Bleekemolen qualified sixth for his Team Bleekemolen outfit.
Stefan Rosina was seventh for Verva, with Kevin Estre eighth for Hermes Attempto Racing. Rounding out the top ten places were Norbert Siedler and Patrick Huisman of Lechner and Bleekemolen respectively.
