In a closely fought Monaco qualifying battle, Kimi Raikkonen took his first pole position since the 2008 French Grand Prix.
Raikkonen claimed his first pole in 128 races with a 1m12.178s ahead of Ferrari team-mate Sebastian Vettel who missed out on the top spot by just 0.043s.
Valtteri Bottas qualified third, just 0.045s adrift of a maiden pole in Monaco. His team-mate Lewis Hamilton had a woeful day as he exited qualifying in Q2 in 14th place.
Hamilton struggled to set a competitive lap time early on and was forced to leave it to the dying moments of the session. When Stoffel Vandoorne binned his McLaren on the exit of the swimming pool, yellow flags were deployed Hamilton’s lap was ruined and he failed to make it into Q3 for the first time in 2017.
The two Red Bulls seemed to be right with the Ferrar duo in Q2, but slipped back in Q3 and were forced to settle for fourth and fifth position. Max Verstappen out-qualifying 2016 Monaco GP victor Daniel Ricciardo.
Carlos Sainz Jr. enjoyed his best Saturday in Monaco of his short F1 career so far with sixth place ahead of Sergio Perez and Romain Grosjean.
When Vandoorne crashed and prevented other drivers from improving, he moved into Q3 for the first time this season. On his return, Jenson Button qualified an excellent ninth.
After showing a huge amount of potential in practice, Daniil Kvyat will be gutted to miss out of Q3 in 11th, like Hamilton, Kvyat’s lap was ruined by Vandoorne’s crash. The Russian will line-up ninth in tomorrow’s race.
Nico Hulkenberg was 12th fastest ahead of Kevin Magnussen, Hamilton and Felipe Massa.
The Force India mechanics managed to re-build Esteban Ocon’s car after a major shunt in FP3 in time for the Frenchman to compete in the latter half of Q1.
Unfortunately, he was knocked out of the top 15 at the death and joined Jolyon Palmer and Lance Stroll in failing to advance to the second part of qualifying.
Sauber had a miserable day, Marcus Ericsson’s tyre broke free from the rim and he qualified slowest of all with team-mate Pascal Wehrlein 19th.
