“Wind” Leclerc took pole position in Monaco, Ferrari equalized 1-2

Charles Leclerc will be first to start Sunday’s Monaco GP as he claimed pole position for his home country with a scintillating 1’11.376 – in the episodic qualifying tests that ended with the clash of Perez in the barriers and Saint in Perez ended.

Leclerc posted a 1:11.376 on his first attempt in Q3 and was on an even quicker lap before the break for the Perez-Saint accident to bring the first year down even further. However, the result did not change and he won the pole position of the 7th round of this year’s Formula 1 in Monaco.

Ferrari seemed to have a reserve of speed ahead of Q3, although Sergio Perez managed to stay close to Leclerc and Saint in the first two seasons. However, the two Scuderia drivers accelerated to Q3 and completely conquered the front row of the grid. And the position of Monaco is the most important of the year due to the large overtaking difficulties in the Mediterranean port.

On the second row, Perez will line up ahead of Max Ferstappen, who in all the two days has never managed to tune the RB18 to his riding weights, at least not as much as his Mexican team-mate, and was two and a half tenths off the pace of the front-runners.

“It was very special and I am very happy. Everything has gone smooth so far these two days and that last lap before the red flag was really good. I was at the limit,” said Leclerc at the end.

Ferrari’s speed superiority was also acknowledged by Christian Horner, director of RBR: “I don’t think we had any pole position ambitions today, Charles was terrible. It’s a shame because I think both of our drivers could improve their times a bit. [στο τέλος]. We have 3rd and 4th place and maybe the weather spoils something. From there we will fight”.

In a last minute incident, Sergio Perez lost the stern of RB18 at Portier (the last one on the right before the tunnel) and ended up at the exit barriers. The oncoming Carlos Saint couldn’t avoid him, he braked and went into a four, causing his left rear wheel to hit Perez on the right front.

“Perez had an accident ahead of me. I was on a fast lap, I saw the yellow flags and I hit the brakes to avoid him as best I could. It’s a shame, I couldn’t race for another year.” pole position, but that’s it: “Monaco. We’ll never know, but I felt good driving today.”.

Fernando Alonso, who lost his brakes at Mirabo when he saw the red flag, also crashed into the barriers at the last minute. However, Alpine unexpectedly made it into the top ten with both cars, as did Mercedes – who managed to alleviate some of the W13’s problems from yesterday’s ranking tests.

However, as more or less expected, the winner of the battle of the “fastest of the rest” was Lando Norris in a circuit that suits McLaren well. George Russell again beat Lewis Hamilton but he was quicker into Q2, while Sebastian Vettel also made it into the top ten with an impressive lap in Q2, driving an Aston Martin that definitely didn’t pay off.

Pierre Gusli would also be in the top ten if he didn’t miss the chance for a fast lap at the end of Q1. The French opponent Yuki Chunoda took the red flag off the track because of rattling after he made contact with the crash barriers of the chicane after the tunnel. With two minutes to go, there was heavy traffic of 15 cars coming out of the pits – and Gasley was one of those paying for it.