Charles Leclerc kept his cool to blitz the field and take pole during a chaotic final qualifying session at the Monaco Grand Prix this morning.
After setting a blistering first flying lap in final qualifying, the Ferrari driver was on his way to an even quicker one when carnage erupted behind him: Red Bull’s Sergio Perez slid off and hit the wall at Portier, near the entrance to the tunnel, before being slammed into by the other Ferrari of the hard-charging Carlos Sainz. With only 30 seconds left in the session and the track blocked, the order was decided. Despite their collision, Sainz and Perez will line up second and third for Monday morning’s race (NZT), with an uncharacteristically off-the-pace Max Verstappen in fourth.
McLaren’s Lando Norris was once again the best of the rest, finishing in fifth place, while the Mercedes duo of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton struggled their way to sixth and eighth, respectively. Fast all weekend, Fernando Alonso split the two to finish seventh, while Sebastian Vettel and Esteban Ocon rounded out the top ten.
Leclerc had been quickest from the weekend’s very first practice session, shrugging off the disappointment of his Barcelona retirement to consistently top the time sheets. “It was a very smooth weekend until now,” he said. “I knew the pace was in the car: I just had to do the job.” So it proved.
Earlier, the first qualifying session of the day saw some odd sights on the leaderboard as a rapidly improving track saw drivers quickly chop and change, with Alpines and Haases temporarily knocking Ferraris and Red Bulls off the top spot. While the order mostly settled down, an overzealous red flag with two and a half minutes to go – due to Yuki Tsunoda clipping the wall at the Nouvelle Chicane – caused a pit lane traffic jam as teams desperately scrambled to get back on track to set one last flying lap. The big loser turned out to be Alpha Tauri’s Pierre Gasly: despite solid pace all weekend the interruption relegated him to 18th place, the dejected Frenchman howling in rage while being wheeled into his garage. Also out were the Williams duo of Alex Albon and Nicholas Latifi, plus Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu.
In Q2 both Ferraris and Red Bull’s Sergio Perez all set rapid times, the three separated by a mere 0.033 at one point. Max Verstappen continued to lag slightly behind, as had been the story through the weekend, finishing the session in a close fourth place with McLaren’s Lando Norris nipping at his heels. It was a different story for Norris’s teammate Daniel Ricciardo, however: the Australian’s troubling run of form continued, finishing a miserable 14th fastest. Also knocked out were both Haas drivers, Yuki Tsunoda and – disappointingly, given his pace throughout the weekend – Valtteri Bottas.
With Leclerc’s form looking ominous, his rivals will be hoping the chance of rain for tomorrow’s race comes to pass. It might be their best chance.