MONACO GP – Charles Leclerc beats Oscar Piastri by a tenth to take pole in a session of fine margins
Charles Leclerc will start his home Monaco Grand Prix from pole after beating Oscar Piastri by a tenth and a half. The Ferrari driver put in a flying and tidy final lap to beat the McLaren and start on pole as he seeks his first home win following a blistering lap to claim his third home pole in four years.
The Monacan was the favourite having topped two practices going into the most important qualifying of the season, but under pressure delivered the lap to take pole with a 10.270. highlight the big jump and fine margins this weekend, Leclerc’s pole margin over Piastri was bigger than the gap separating the McLaren driver from Verstappen in sixth.
However, Leclerc has never finished on the podium in Monaco, dubbed as the ’curse’ dating back to F3 and F2, he will be hoping for luck as he seeks to convert Ferrari’s 250th pole into the first home win for a Monacan in ninety-five years. Sainz put his Ferrari three hundredths faster than the second McLaren of Lando Norris.
the twenty-fourth of Leclerc’s career, which saw him surpass Niki Lauda, five years since his death, to have the most poles for the Italian team after Michael Schumacher.
Piastri spilt the two Ferraris as he claimed his first front row start in the Grand Prix format having started on pole in Lusail after he went nearly a tenth faster than Carlos Sainz, the battle between the sports two most successful teams. Leclerc said: “It was nice. The feeling after a qualifying lap is very special here. Really happy about the lap. The excitement is so high. It feels really good.”
“However, now I know more often than not in the past, that qualifying is not everything. As much as it helps, we need to put everything together for Sunday’s race. In the past here we didn’t manage to do so, but we are in a stronger position and we are a stronger team. I’m sure we can achieve great things tomorrow and the win is the target.”
Piastri added “I think if you took the second part of my first lap in Q3, and the first half of the second one, it would’ve been enough. A couple of mistakes at the end, but credit to Charles – he’s been incredibly quick all weekend. At certain points, I don’t think anyone thought we were going to get close to him. Nice starting on the front row.”
George Russell was fifth just a thousandth behind his fellow Englishman, and ahead of Max Verstappen by a quarter of a tenth. Red Bull have looked to struggle all weekend with the Dutchman not making gains on Leclerc who had a similar margin in FP3.
Verstappen only managed one real attempt in Q3, after he threw away his final attempt leaving him sixth, but he would have likely gone faster if he hadn’t hit the wall on his final attempt. Verstappen did spilt the Mercedes after going six hundredths faster than Lewis Hamilton.
This however has been the third weekend where Verstappen has struggled and openly admitted it would be harder to fight for pole on Friday night, but the Dutchman ultimately came unstuck in the opening sector of his final lap where he narrowly survived a scuffle with the Sainte Devote exit barrier.
Despite being beaten to race wins in Melbourne and Miami, Verstappen has started on pole for the last eight Grands Prix from Las Vegas last year. That means his run of eight consecutive poles and the chance to pass Ayrton Senna’s record is over, at least for now as they tie on eight.
Verstappen, at round eight, cannot have as dominant season as 2023 but is still the favourite for his fourth title. But it was till an improvement on practice that the evidence starting to suggest the RB20 doesn’t like bumpy street circuits or old circuits which could also be an issue in Montreal.
It was unlikely Verstappen had enough pace to beat the Ferrari on this occasion, but the Dutchman’s error is likely to cost him points on Sunday, with having the opportunity to close a forty-eight point deficit at the top of the drivers’ standings.
Mercedes looking to have a much better qualifying than it looked after practice when they looked unlikely to challenge in Q3. Hamilton couldn’t quite find enough to close the gap but was almost a quarter of a tenth faster than the RB of Yuki Tsunoda.
Alex Albon only made one attempt in the final part of qualifying, the Williams drivers first Q3 of the season saw him end up ninth going four tenths faster than Pierre Gasly. While Gasly’s improvement at the end of Q2 saw him knock out Alpine teammate Esteban Ocon, who was seven thousandths behind Albon.
Ocon was a tenth and a half faster than Nico Hulkenberg also out in Q2 were Daniel Ricciardo, Lance Stroll, and Kevin Magnussen. They were covered by three-tenths.
Monaco is known for surprises and that came in the form of Fernando Alonso and Sergio Perez, both drivers knocked out in Q1. Alonso had put his Aston Martin thirteenth, but as the track improved as it often does, last year’s second on the grid was knocked out by over a tenth.
But showing how surprising it was he was over a quarter of a second behind Stroll and only out-qualified Logan Sargeant by a thousandth of a second. The two-time winner perhaps showing how far Aston Martin has dropped back. The other surprise was Sergio Perez only eighteenth.
The second Red Bull four hundredths off, after spending most of Q1 struggling to find clean air and track position to do a competitive attempt. Valtteri Bottas was half a second faster than Guanyu Zhou, as both Sauber’s prop up the grid.