Lewis Hamilton secured his first pole position at Monaco ahead of this weekend's Monaco Grand Prix, securing pole from Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel.
The three sessions around the famous streets of the principality were full of surprises as Williams’ Valterri Bottas went out in Q1, qualifying P17. McLaren managed to make it out of the first session, and could have easily made the third had it not been for Fernando Alonso’s power failure and Jenson Button being hindered by a yellow flag at turn one.
Q1 was full of the usual suspects, with the two Manor’s sitting at the back of the grid. Will Stevens managed to outqualify team mate Roberto Merhi for the sixth race in succession, maintaining his stranglehold on the inter-team qualifying race. The two Sauber’s joined them as Marcus Ericsson could only manage P18 with Felipe Nasr narrowly missing the cut in P16.
The big surprise was Bottas’ departure early in the qualifying session. The Finn couldn’t find a gap in the track to post a solid lap, and with traffic and yellow flags stepping him, the Williams driver couldn’t do any better than 17th.
Q2 was looking encouraging as Fernando Alonso was setting himself up for a strong lap, until his engine cut out at Sainte Devote. The on-board shots showed that the Spaniard lost power completely and pulled off to the side of the pit exit. With Monaco being such a tight track, there was no way to safely get the stricken MP4-30 back to the pits, meaning Alonso managed only 15th.
It wasn’t a good day for Williams as Bottas’ team mate Felipe Massa compounded their misery by only managing P14. Nico Hulkenberg only was able to grab 13th in the Force India. Jenson Button came closest to putting a McLaren into Q3 for the first time this season, but 12th was the best he could do. The Brit sounded exasperated but upbeat on his in lap to the pits. Romain Grosjean narrowly missed out on Q3 and qualified 11th ahead of the race tomorrow.
The one surprising thing in Q3 wasn’t the Mercedes’ dominance up front, but Red Bull’s strong pace. Daniel Ricciardo posted the fourth fastest time with team mate Daniil Kvyat going fifth, a great turn of speed from the former world champions. Sister outfit Toro Rosso also performed admirably, after being pacy all weekend, Carlos Sainz posted a time eighth quickest with Max Verstappen going tenth.
Kimi Raikkonen’s poor qualifying fortunes continued as he could only manage sixth, but team mate Sebastian Vettel is best of the rest behind the Mercedes’ in third, but couldn’t challenge the pair of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg as they locked out the front row.
Nico was challenging Hamilton and as the chequered flag came out to mark the end of the session, Rosberg locked up, going wide at Sainte Devote and aborted his lap, meaning Hamilton secured his first pole around the streets of Monaco.