Nico Rosberg regained the upper hand on teammate Lewis Hamilton by taking a hard-earned, albeit slightly fortunate, pole position in Monaco. The German outpaced Hamilton on his first run of Q3 before a slip-up at Mirabeau in the last minute brought out the yellow flags, destroying any hopes the Briton had of snatching pole from him.
Mirabeau was also the scene of fireworks at the start of the qualifying hour when Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Massa came to grief. The Brazilian appeared to open the door for the Caterham only for Ericsson to outbrake himself and skate off into the barrier, taking Massa with him. With Felipe unable to recover his car to the pits, he was forced to take no part in Q2 despite comfortably making it through.
Mercedes had no problems making it through to the final session but the controversy started on Rosberg’s final lap when the German locked up into Mirabeau. With the barrier fast approaching, Nico opted to use the escape road but the inevitable consequence was yellow flags in the second sector, rendering his 1:15.989 unbeatable. The incident has been referred to the stewards.
A visibly annoyed Hamilton had to make do with second while the Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel will start together on row two, the latter having to drive with intermittent kinetic energy problems on his RB10. Ferrari have locked out the third row with Fernando Alonso outqualifying Kimi Raikkonen while Jean-Eric Vergne took seventh ahead of the impressive Kevin Magnussen and Daniil Kvyat, the two rookies performing superbly to take eighth and ninth ahead of Sergio Perez. Kvyat was particularly delighted with his result after wiping the front wing off his Toro Rosso with a spin at the Nouvelle chicane in Q1.
Nico Hulkenberg was knocked out by his Force India teammate in Q2 with Jenson Button another big name to miss the cut, qualifying down in twelfth. Valtteri Bottas completed a miserable day for Williams with thirteenth and will only have the Lotus of Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado between himself and teammate Felipe Massa on tomorrow’s grid.
 2014 GRAND PRIX DE MONACO – QUALIFYING CLASSIFICATION |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
| POS | DRIVER | TEAM | TIME |
| 1 |  6. NICO ROSBERG |
MERCEDES | 1:15.989 |
| 2 |  44. LEWIS HAMILTON |
MERCEDES | 1:16.048 |
| 3 |  3. DANIEL RICCIARDO |
RED BULL RACING RENAULT | 1:16.384 |
| 4 | 1. SEBASTIAN VETTEL |
RED BULL RACING RENAULT | 1:16.547 |
| 5 |  14. FERNANDO ALONSO |
FERRARI | 1:16.686 |
| 6 |  7. KIMI RAIKKONEN |
FERRARI | 1:17.389 |
| 7 |  25. JEAN-ERIC VERGNE |
STR RENAULT | 1:17.540 |
| 8 |  20. KEVIN MAGNUSSEN |
McLAREN MERCEDES | 1:17.555 |
| 9 |  26. DANIIL KVYAT |
STR RENAULT | 1:18.090 |
| 10 |  11. SERGIO PEREZ |
FORCE INDIA MERCEDES | 1:18.327 |
| ELIMINATED IN QUALIFYING 2 | |||
| 11 | 27. NICO HULKENBERG |
FORCE INDIA MERCEDES | 1:17.846 |
| 12 | 22. JENSON BUTTON |
McLAREN MERCEDES | 1:17.988 |
| 13 | 77. VALTTERI BOTTAS |
WILLIAMS MERCEDES | 1:18.082 |
| 14 | 8. ROMAIN GROSJEAN |
LOTUS RENAULT | 1:18.196 |
| 15 |  13. PASTOR MALDONADO |
LOTUS RENAULT | 1:18.356 |
| 16 |  19. FELIPE MASSA |
WILLIAMS MERCEDES | NO TIME |
| ELIMINATED IN QUALIFYING 1 | |||
| 17 | 21. ESTEBAN GUTIERREZ |
SAUBER FERRARI | 1:18.741 |
| 18 | 99. ADRIAN SUTIL |
SAUBER FERRARI | 1:18.745 |
| 19 | 17. JULES BIANCHI |
MARUSSIA FERRARI | 1:19.332 |
| 20 | 4. MAX CHILTON |
MARUSSIA FERRARI | 1:19.928 |
| 21 |  10. KAMUI KOBAYASHI |
CATERHAM RENAULT | 1:20.133 |
| 22 |  9. MARCUS ERICSSON |
CATERHAM RENAULT | 1:21.732 |
| 107% QUALIFYING TIME: 1:22.985 | |||
