Charles Leclerc is a prophet at home: the Monegasque in qualifying for the Monaco GP makes magic on the streets of his home and wins the start at the pole with the Ferrari F1-75. The prince printed an amazing 1’11 “376 which left everyone at least two tenths of a second, demonstrating a clear superiority that was seen from the first laps of the first free practice session
Leclerc would almost certainly have improved his time in the last run because he had four tenths of an advantage, but he had to abort the lap due to the crash of Sergio Perez which blocked the track at the Portier and slammed violently against the barriers with the rear of the RB18.
Carlos Sainz, who followed the Mexican, did not have time to slow down despite the reports of the commissioners so he spun his red trying to avoid very serious damage. It went well for him, but there was only one yellow flag, as if the runway was unobstructed. The red flag was immediately taken by framing the fifth pole of the season, the second in Monaco and the 14th in his career, so he equalized the score with Max Verstappen.
Ferrari signs the entire front row, resuming a tradition that was interrupted in 2017 with Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel. The Scuderia reacts in the best possible way to the disappointment of Barcelona by showing an F1-75 that is unstoppable for everyone. Sainz takes a second position that gives him morale: the Madrid player has secured the second position from the attacks of Sergio Perez for 28 thousandths of a second. A trifle.
The Mexican is third ahead of Max Verstappen: it is not surprising because the Dutchman has never found himself with the RB18, arguing with an annoying understeer and constantly remaining behind his teammate. The world championship leader was very annoyed that the last run of Q3 was interrupted by the red flag: in short, he hinted that he was really angry with Sergio, who made the mistake. Max’s outburst, however, does not hide the difficulties he experienced in the Principality with a car that was never really right. Ferrari looks decidedly superior.
Lando Norris with McLaren stands out to be the first of the others: the Englishman comes within a couple of tenths of Verstappen and this says a lot about his lap in the Principality, because if the MCL36 were to be judged by Ricciardo we would have a very different opinion on the team. by Woking.
Another hero of the day is Fernando Alonso who allowed himself to slip his Alpine between the two Mercedes with a lap of pure talent: the Spaniard was preceded by George Russell, usually faster than Lewis Hamilton, forced into eighth place. The W13 continues to disappoint even if in qualifying it showed less hopping than in free practice.
Very nice the qualification of Sebastian Vettel that brought Aston Martin in eighth position: the German is developing the greenback with sloping bellies and it seems that the AMR22 is much better, a sign that the idea of changing philosophy was not wrong at all .
Esteban completes the top 10 with Alpine: after the difficulties experienced over the weekend, this is the maximum result he could have aspired to.
Yuki Tsunoda remains out of Q3 but the Japanese has already made a miracle to pass the first trap because the Japanese kissed the rail inside the Porto chicane at the end of Q1: the front left was punctured and the race direction has decided to display the red flag to allow the marshals to remove the debris of the damaged rim that had remained in the trajectory. The “samurai” is back on track, winning the passage to the second round as if nothing had happened.
Valtteri Bottas is 12th with Alfa Romeo: on a track that should have exalted the mechanical qualities of the C42, the Finn was struggling to find the best pace. Valtteri probably accused him of having missed the first free practice session due to the failure of the MGU-K of the Ferrari engine.
More was expected from the two Haas with Kevin Magnussen still ahead of Mick Schumacher: the Dane grabbed a 13th place finish by finishing his good lap in the traffic found at Rascasse. Mick came close to his teammate, but Daniel Ricciardo got in the middle: the Australian is 14th with the rebuilt MCL36 after the crash at the swimming pools on Friday afternoon. Daniel has entered a black hole and does not seem able to get out of it.
Alexander Albon does not pass the trap of Q1 with Williams who is 16th in front of the great disappointment of this Pierre Gasly qualification. The AlphaTauri Frenchman is suffering beyond measure from the ground-effect cars, but in this juncture he took the checkered flag before he could launch for the last run after the red flag of teammate Yuki Tsunoda: Pierre saw the appearance of the red light just as he was passing with the AT02. In the Faenza team this is not the first strategy mistake this year and it costs very dearly, as it took just a couple of seconds to make the run.
Male Lance Stroll with Aston Martin: the Canadian never found the pace with the new AMR22 and, probably, did not regain confidence after hitting the barriers at the exit of the second chicane delle Piscine at the end of the third practice session free. He did not impress Nicholas Latifi with the second Williams, but this time Guanyu Zhou did worse last with the Alfa Romeo C42. The Chinese has paid an important gap from the penultimate: 1 “2 are definitely too many. It must be said that he too had to give up on the last attempt having taken the flag.
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