MP Motorsport’s Felipe Drugovich has been handed Pole Position for the Monaco Feature Race after Carlin’s Liam Lawson was handed a five-place grid penalty as well as having his pole position time deleted by the stewards for a yellow flag infringement.
The yellow flag was brought out in the dying moments of the Group A’s qualifying session after the championship leader, Drugovich, got a tank-slapper on the exit of the final corner and made contact with the wall causing him to stop on track.
Throughout Group A’s session, Lawson and Drugovich were trading blows as they seemed to keep one-upping each other’s sector times throughout the narrow streets of the coastline. The Brazilian driver had set a purple middle sector just before his unfortunate retirement at the very end.
Ayumu Iwasa initially set the second fastest time of the Group A lot but just like Lawson, The DAMS‘ driver was also slapped with a five place grid drop and a deletion of his fastest time following the yellow flag infringement.
In the post-qualifying press conference, Lawson spoke about the incident, “I didn’t see until basically before the line where he was parked. The wall curves onto the straight. It’s basically a constant right-hand turn and he was so late I didn’t see the car basically until we went around.”
“For me, it was fine. I left plenty of space. I wasn’t aware that he was there basically until it was too late.“
ART Grand Prix’s Théo Pourchaire topped the timing sheets of Group B’s qualifying session. The championship contender two tenths off Drugovich’s pole time but was unable to complete his final flying lap due to a red flag brought out for Jake Hughes.
The Van Amersfoort Racing driver suffered a nasty shunt at the swimming pool complex in the final sector after he clipped the wall on entry. His front wing proceeded to then bounce him into the barriers, thus neutralising the session.
Jüri Vips missed out on the front row by less than a tenth of a second after Pourchaire surpassed his time moments after he set it.
With the results from both groups being aggregated, Group A will line up ahead of Group B on their respective rows. This means Drugovich and Pourchaire will start on the front row of the grid for Sunday’s Feature Race.
Jake Hughes and Dennis Hauger will line up alongside each other on the first row for Saturday’s Sprint Race, with Hughes on the reverse pole grid spot.
Group A Classification
| POS | NUM | NAME | NAT | TEAM | TIME |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 11 | Felipe Drugovich | BRA | MP Motorsport | 1:21.348 |
| 2 | 3 | Jack Doohan | AUS | Virtuosi Racing | +0.084 |
| 3 | 5 | Liam Lawson | NZL | Carlin | +0.151 |
| 4 | 7 | Marcus Armstrong | NZL | Hitech Grand Prix | +0.386 |
| 5 | 1 | Dennis Hauger | NOR | PREMA Racing | +0.469 |
| 6 | 15 | Ralph Boschung | CHE | Campos Racing | +0.511 |
| 7 | 17 | Ayumu Iwasa | JPN | DAMS | +0.554 |
| 8 | 21 | Calan Williams | AUS | Trident | +0.637 |
| 9 | 9 | Frederik Vesti | DNK | ART Grand Prix | +1.355 |
| 10 | 25 | Amaury Cordeel | BEL | Van Amersfoort Racing | +1.414 |
| 11 | 23 | Cem Bölükbasi | TUR | Charouz Racing System | +2.802 |
Group B Classification
| POS | NUM | NAME | NAT | TEAM | TIME |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10 | Théo Pourchaire | FRA | ART Grand Prix | 1:21.535 |
| 2 | 8 | Jüri Vips | EST | Hitech Grand Prix | +0.083 |
| 3 | 22 | Enzo Fittipaldi | BRA | Charouz Racing System | +0.184 |
| 4 | 2 | Jehan Daruvala | IND | PREMA Racing | +0.393 |
| 5 | 24 | Jake Hughes | GBR | Van Amersfoort Racing | +0.476 |
| 6 | 16 | Roy Nissany | ISR | DAMS | +0.482 |
| 7 | 6 | Logan Sargeant | USA | Carlin | +0.537 |
| 8 | 12 | Clément Novalak | FRA | MP Motorsport | +1.645 |
| 9 | 4 | Marino Sato | JPN | Virtuosi Racing | +1.706 |
| 10 | 14 | Olli Caldwell | GBR | Campos Racing | +1.963 |
