A brilliant lap from Daniel Ricciardo gave the Australian driver his maiden Formula 1 pole position for this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix.
The Red Bull Racing driver set a best time of 1:13.622 to take the first pole position for his team since the 2013 Brazilian Grand Prix, and will have the luxury of starting the race on Sunday on the Supersoft Pirelli tyre after setting his fastest time of Q2 on that compound.
But it was very different story in the other side of the Red Bull garage, with Max Verstappen crashing out of Q1, with the Dutchman set to start at the back of the grid as a result.
Try as they might but the Mercedes AMG PETRONAS duo of Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton were unable to match Ricciardo’s time, with the German ending up ahead of his British team-mate by 0.151s.
Hamilton was forced to miss the first part of Q3 after his car stopped in the pit lane after complaining of having no power, but was able to get on track with half the session remaining, but was unable to do any better than third.
Sebastian Vettel will line-up fourth for Scuderia Ferrari, but felt the car was not handling as he would have liked, believing the set-up was not as good as it had been when he set the fastest time during practice on Saturday morning.
Nico Hulkenberg secured his best Monaco Grand Prix start in fifth for Sahara Force India, while Kimi Raikkonen was sixth fastest in the second Ferrari, but will drop five places on the grid following a pre-qualifying gearbox change.
Raikkonen’s penalty will promote Carlos Sainz Jr to sixth for Scuderia Toro Rosso, with Sergio Perez and Daniil Kvyat set to share row four, while Fernando Alonso will start ninth for McLaren-Honda after making it through to Q3 for only the second time this season.
Nico Rosberg – Credit: Octane Photographic Ltd
Raikkonen will also drop behind the Williams of Valtteri Bottas, who was the first driver eliminated in Q2, with the Grove-team once again showing poor pace around the streets of Monaco.
Esteban Gutierrez will start twelfth for Haas ahead of McLaren’s Jenson Button, with the second Williams of Felipe Massa and Romain Grosjean’s Haas next up, while Kevin Magnussen was the last driver in Q2, although the Renault driver is under investigation after jumping a red light at the end of the pit lane during Q1.
Marcus Ericsson was the first driver eliminated in that Q1 session, with the Sauber driver missing out by just over two-tenths of a second, while Jolyon Palmer continued his tough Monaco weekend with a time only good enough for eighteenth in the second Renault. Palmer made it through to Q2 in the first race of the season in Australia but has not advanced through at any time since.
The two Manor Racing drivers will share row ten, with Indonesian racer Rio Haryanto getting the better of Mercedes-protégé Pascal Wehrlein this time around.
At the back will be the crashed Verstappen, who did not set a competitive lap time before his crash, and Felipe Nasr, who suffered an engine failure on his Sauber before being able to set a time at all.
Lewis Hamilton – Credit: Octane Photographic Ltd
Monaco Grand Prix Qualifying Result
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