Monaco: Rosberg takes pole despite error

Nico Rosberg has taken the sixth pole position of his career, qualifying in first place for the Monaco Grand Prix with teammate Lewis Hamilton just behind in second place. It is Nico Rosberg’s second consecutive pole position in Monaco having qualified in pole position in 2013 before going on to win the race. Rosberg and Hamilton’s one-two qualifying also cements Mercedes AMG F1’s third one-two qualification of the 2014 season.

Despite a mistake in the dying seconds of Q3 where Rosberg found himself overshooting a corner and running off-track, his qualifying time of 1:15.989 was fast enough to hold onto P1 whilst teammate Hamilton’s second fastest lap was just 0.059 seconds behind.

Red Bull look to have found some pace in Monaco with Daniel Ricciardo qualifying in third, just 0.395 seconds behind pole position and Sebastian Vettel in fourth for a second row Red Bull racing lockout.

The third row belongs to Ferrari as Fernando Alonso qualified in fifth place ahead of Kimi Raikkonen whilst Jean-Eric Vergne put on a strong display to qualify seventh for tomorrow’s race. Kevin Magnussen, Daniil Kvyat and Sergio Perez make up the final positions of the top 10.

Nico Hulkenberg was out qualified by his Force India teammate in Q2 and whilst Perez made it through to Q3 finishing the second session in provisional tenth place, Hulkenberg finished his day in P11. The Force India’s will line up a position apart to start the Grand Prix tomorrow afternoon.

A surprise dropout in Q2 was Jenson Button in the McLaren. Looking stronger during Thursdays’ Free Practice sessions, Button seemed to lose pace, ultimately holding him back in qualifying. Button will start tomorrows’ race from 12th on the grid, ahead of Williams Valtteri Bottas in thirteenth and out qualified by his rookie teammate who placed 8th.

Lotus’ struggles in 2014 continue as both Grosjean and Maldonado were unable to compete with the top 10 in Q2. They qualified 14th and 15th respectively.

As a relatively uneventful Q1 in the streets of Monaco came to a close, Caterham’s Marcus Ericsson locked up his tyres whilst trying to overtake the Williams’ of Felipe Massa with too much speed. The result would end in a collision caused by Ericcson, forcing yellow flags late in the session and ending Q1 on a quiet note whilst also delaying the start of Q2 allowing time for the marshals to recover the damaged Caterham and Williams as the drivers returned to the pits. The Williams car would not return to the pits in time though and the team confirmed that Massa’s day was over, being unable to compete in Q2 and improve on his track position. Massa will start from P16 as the race starts tomorrow.

The back of the grid sees the Sauber’s of Esteban Gutierrez and Adrian Sutil line up 17th and 18th followed by the Marussia’s of Bianchi and Chilton. Caterham’s Kamui Kobayashi and Marcus Ericsson complete the grid.

The Formula 1 Grand Prix De Monaco 2014 starts tomorrow, May 25th at 14:00 local time.