Monaco Surmounted Minimal Expectations

A quintessential qualifying and a dismayed Monégasque

A street circuit shrouded in gold, squeezing past the Casino de Monte Carlo and cruising along the sparkling Mediterranean Sea, wouldn’t strike a Formula 1 newcomer as dull. However, the lead-up to the Monaco Grand Prix brought rumors of cancellation and complaints deeming the historic race stale. 

Saturday’s qualifying session put those protests to bed. 

Following three practice sessions favoring Carlos Sainz’s precise driving style and undermining the majority of the grid with compressed walls, qualifying was a flying feast. 

Red Bull’s Checo Perez commenced his second flying lap in the first qualifying knockout round (Q1) by punching the sponsor-clad barriers. His over-eager entry into the first turn, Sainte Devote, led to a red flag and a blanket of debris coating the track. 

Lewis Hamilton didn’t have a painless qualifying either. The Mercedes driver’s fifth-place finish wasn’t reflective of his weekend.

The seven-time World Champion dragged his car behind less experienced drivers like Logan Sargeant (Williams), Zhou Guanyu (Alfa Romeo) and Nyck de Vries (AlphaTauri) for the majority of Q1. Hamilton made a last-minute effort to shove his way into the third qualifying session, successfully knocking McLaren’s Oscar Piastri out of advancing in what would have been a stellar start for the rookie.

A 1:11.725-minute lap time was an impressive feat considering his front right wheel lock-up over the chicane in Q1 and a rare thump into the wall around the seventh turn during the third practice session.

Even drivers who grew up trailing the turns of Monaco, like Charles Leclerc, couldn’t keep pace.

Despite completing all three sectors faster than his previous best time with an outstanding qualifying lap in Q2 and gaining pole with 1 minute and 18 seconds remaining in Q3, Leclerc failed to lead. The Monégasque Ferrari driver was handed a penalty and dropped three positions after obstructing Lando Norris’ (McLaren) flying lap in the tunnel section of the traffic-jammed circuit. Leclerc will start from a disheartening sixth place tomorrow.

Sainz, the second Ferrari driver who flew past the pack throughout the weekend’s practice sessions, didn’t fair as well in the qualifying shootout for a front-row start. The last lap of Q3, specifically around turns three, six and seven, saw Sainz slip backward in a cloud of dirty air. 

Despite a purple, or fastest, sector two in Q3, Sainz will start behind Max Verstappen (Red Bull), Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) and Esteban Ocon (Alpine) in fourth on Sunday. 

While many were expecting Sainz’s teammate, the local legend and Ferrari’s golden boy, to be the tale of qualifying, two unsuspecting underdogs made headlines as they outperformed their cars, teammates and frontrunners. 

Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri) joined the slew of potential pole-sitters, holding out into Q3 with a 1:12.082-minute lap. Tsunoda will begin his third race in the principality with a personal best qualifying position out of his previous Monaco starts. Frankly, the Japanese driver is fast on the confined streets. In his debut year, he set the second-fastest lap, just behind Hamilton, albeit qualifying and finishing 16th. In 2022, Tsunoda set another second-fastest lap, shy of Norris’ 1:14.693-minute time, and qualified 11th with a disappointing 17th-place finish. 

Although he hasn’t started—or finished—near the top, the 23-year-old driver is speeding to the limit and then some with what F1 presenter Will Buxton calls potentially the worst car this season.

A second unlikely team made it into the third round of qualifying with Alpine’s Ocon outshining his teammate Pierre Gasly, even after slamming into the wall in Q2. With just three minutes left in qualifying, Ocon leapt to the top of the time card. As the third driver to surpass the previous 1:12-minute fastest lap time into 1:11-minute territory, Ocon held onto pole for a brief few sweet seconds before Leclerc knocked him down to second. 

With only a minute to go, Ocon fell to fourth as his 1:11.553-minute lap couldn’t keep pace with Red Bull, Aston Martin and Ferrari. Ocon will start third after Leclerc’s penalty repositioning. 

Like Tsunoda, the French driver showed that his dexterity behind the wheel trumps the capabilities of a mid-field car. 

“It proves that around here, where it’s a tough circuit, where you have to hustle the car, I can be there also,” Ocon said in a post-qualifying interview. 

Standing out from the crowd, despite it being their typical place at the front, were the two drivers that have terrorized the track this season.

Alonso, hitting a purple first and second sector along with a personal best third sector, will start his 20th Monaco Grand Prix from second. According to F1’s official Instagram, since 2015, drivers starting in second place have won more often than those in pole-sitting position. 

Verstappen, stretching the gap in points between him and the rest of the drivers, will start on pole. While fans bemoaned his routine first place standing in hopes of some excitement, the World Champion’s run was anything but monotonous. 

Verstappen repeatedly climbed his way to the top. With just five seconds until the clock struck zero, the Dutch driver wrapped up a purple sector three and finished a hasty last shot at pole that left spectators and commentators alike speechless. His 1:11.365 lap time, just 0.084 seconds ahead of Alonso, could have been even quicker if he hadn’t brushed the wall. 

Monaco is renowned for its impenetrable gaps, sparse overtakes, scarce run-off areas, unyielding corners and, therefore, inevitable crashes. The widening of cars over the years has not helped.  The weekend has already thrown Hamilton, Perez, Albon, Verstappen and nearly half of the grid into the barricades. 

Minimal overtakes were a major discussion point ahead of the Grand Prix weekend, as fans grumbled that the race would be lackluster. However, the qualifying session proved that not every race is compelling in the same way. 

As

on provisional pole

said in their Monaco Grand Prix briefing, the race showcases different skill sets. Sainz and Ocon’s performances exemplify the track favoring the precise and cautious rather than the bold. 

on provisional pole: “Good for the viewers or not, Monaco is still one of the most demanding tracks in Formula 1 and used to be considered the ultimate test of a driver’s skill. The constraints of the track mean the drivers have to be in complete control of their cars at all times—one wrong move could be disastrous. It was a race on the calendar meant to show the drivers’ fine motor skills and car control, not flashy overtakes.” 

Veteran F1 presenters, former drivers and established viewers were struck by the close rankings, with mere hundredths of a second between positions. 

“[That was] one of the best qualifying sessions ever, and I don’t think that is hyperbole,” F1 presenter Laura Winter said in the post-qualifying show. “It has been absolutely brilliant, sublime, magic on the streets here in Monaco.” 

The 2-mile road may be narrow, but so is the grid, offering an unpredictable lineup. After one of the most rousing qualifying jousts, Monaco prevails as the Crown Jewel of F1.