Webber takes Monaco pole

Mark Webber made sure his Red Bull Racing Team remained unbeaten in qualifying by taking pole position for the Monaco GP.

The Australian set a fastest 1’13’’826 lap time to beat Robert Kubica for top spot. His teammate Sebastian Vettel was third fastest and will line up on the second row of the grid alongside Ferrari’s Felipe Massa.

Fernando Alonso was forced to sit out the session having badly damaged his Ferrari in a practice crash. He will have to start the race from the pitlane.

Let’s have a look at how the session panned out:

Q1

With traffic a huge concern in this first part of qualifying, the frontrunners didn’t wait too long to leave the pits and post a time on the board.

They took no chances and quickly put themselves in safe places. With ten minutes remaining, Massa was leading Webber and Vettel. Nico Rosberg was in fourth place while Jenson Button, Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton rounded off the top seven.

The final minutes saw both Force Indias and Renault leap up the order, thus making it safely through to Q2. Despite earlier fears, there was no upset and the six drivers eliminated were Chandhok, Senna, di Grassi, Glock, Trulli and Kovalainen.

Q2

Q2 was another story as the 17 remaining drivers scrambled for the top ten positions that would qualify them for the final shootout.

Robert Kubica quickly put his Renault on top with Rosberg and Massa hot on his heels. The Pole was relegated to fifth a few minutes later as Rosberg, Webber, Vettel and Massa improved on his best time.

They all went out for a final run at the end of this session but a mistake from Vitaly Petrov at Ste Devote lost them some time. There were a few improvements but no big surprise as Alguersuari, Kobayashi, De la Rosa, Petrov, Buemi, Sutil and Hulkenberg were knocked out.

But Jenson Button narrowly made it as he was less than two tenths of a second quicker than 11th placed Nico Hulkenberg.

Q3

Robert Kubica was once again the one to watch out for as he set an impressive pace at the wheel of his Renault.

Red Bull’s Mark Webber suddenly appeared at the front at the end of the session and took provisional pole away from Kubica. The Australian further improved and set a 1’13’’826 fastest time that sealed him and Red Bull pole position for the Monaco GP.

Robert Kubica will join him on the front row while Sebastian Vettel and Felipe Massa will line up on the 2nd row. The third and fourth rows will be Mercedes powered, with Hamilton fifth fastest ahead of Rosberg, Schumacher and Button.

Barrichello and Liuzzi will share the fifth row.