Red flags, big crash at the end of qualifying! Things were happening in Monaco, or who will start from pole position?

The Monaco Grand Prix is the seventh event of this year’s F1 season, with qualifying on Saturday as usual. It brought a great fight and an even more attractive spectacle! As last year, Leclerc in the Ferrari took pole position, but the final minutes brought a big crash.

Kuan-yu Zhou, Nicholas Latifi, Lance Stroll, Pierre Gasly and Alexander Albon were the five drivers who failed to advance from the first part of qualifying.

It must be said, the end of Q1 was very hectic. With about two and a half minutes to go in this first act, Júki Cunoda hit the wall in the Nouvelle chicane and took care of the red flags.

The pilot of the AlphaTauri had significant damage to his left front wheel. After a while, however, the first part of qualifying was restarted again, whereupon a very hectic end to Q1 was not even managed by the aforementioned Albon, despite his original eleventh place.

The second qualifying segment brought very close distances in the fight for the qualifying positions for the last part of the qualifying. Mick Schumacher will start from fifteenth place on Sunday, with another disappointing result in McLaren colours by Daniel Ricciardo.

It is fair to say that the boss of the British team, Zak Brown, reminded Ricciardo that he simply must improve. The thirty-two year old Australian has a clause in his contract that allows him to terminate his contract early.

Objectively, it can be noted that Ricciardo, apart from his victory at Monza in Italy last year and a few other races, has been running disappointing results for a long time.

Schumacher’s teammate Kevin Magnussen was thirteenth on the grid in qualifying. The twelfth starting slot on Sunday will belong to Valtteri Bottas in the Alfa Romeo, with Cunoda setting the eleventh fastest time.

The third and final part of qualifying brought a heated battle for pole position, which was best managed by Charles Leclerc!

The 24-year-old Monegasque, who is driving the home Grand Prix, set a time of 1:11.376. He beat teammate Carlos Sainz, who finished second in qualifying, by more than two tenths of a second.

But the last minute of Q3 brought a big crash. Red Bull driver Sergio Pérez failed to negotiate the Portier corner, got clocked and the rear of his car leaned heavily into the wall. In addition, Sainz, who was behind him, failed to brake in time and collided with Pérez on the exit of the incriminating eighth corner.

“I was just doing my fast lap and trying to fight for pole position when I saw Pérez in turn eight. I tried to avoid making contact with each other, so I jerked the wheel to the side, but unfortunately it wasn’t enough. Moreover, I saw the yellow flags out too late,” explained Sainz in his post-race interview.

However, you can see the final results of Saturday’s qualifying in the above Twitter post.

The Monaco Grand Prix starts on Sunday 29 May. All five lights will then go out as standard at 15:00.

Source: F1 TV