Then all the time through that last sector, I think he hit the wall on both sides but carried the momentum and the speed.
“When he arrived at the swimming pool he was 0.2 sec behind Fernando. “I think that is one of the best laps he’s ever driven in qualifying,” he insisted to Sky Sports. Horner, though, was still waxing lyrical about it later on. “We needed to pull that out the bag,” he replied. “Mighty.” The man himself was not getting overly carried away. “What a last sector, Max!” Red Bull’s team principal, Christian Horner, exclaimed over the radio after his man had beaten Alonso’s time by just 0.084 seconds. Realistically they are all going to need rain or some other act of God if they are to catch Red Bull’s runaway championship leader who once again showed why he is the man to beat at the moment. Leclerc’s penalty was good news for Ocon, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, who will now start third, fourth and fifth respectively.
MAX VERSTAPPEN CRASH MONACO 2017 DRIVER
The Monegasque driver had been hopeful of doing something from third, but he was later demoted to sixth on the grid after stewards found him guilty of “clearly impeding” McLaren’s Lando Norris in the middle of the tunnel when the latter was on a fast lap. And the Spaniard, who is famed for his fast starts, definitely still has a chance today. Verstappen’s pit crew went suitably potty, while Alonso’s looked crushed.Īlonso was phlegmatic about missing out on pole, saying he “had to be happy” given Aston Martin’s astonishing progress this year.
MAX VERSTAPPEN CRASH MONACO 2017 FULL
As he entered the final sector, the Dutch driver was a full two tenths of a second off Alonso’s split.īut this is when champions show their mettle, and Verstappen’s final sector, in which he clipped the wall at the one point as he literally pushed his Red Bull to the ragged limit, was utterly majestic. Verstappen, by that point, was only midway through his final lap and well short of the required pace. You could feel the crowds in Monaco willing the 41 year-old on and they roared their approval when he set the provisional mark with seconds to go of the session. It is more than 11 years since the Spaniard last took a pole, at the 2012 German Grand Prix, and over a decade since his last win, which came in Spain the following year.
But there is no doubt Alonso would have been a more popular pole-sitter.
There are showers forecast so that is a possibility. Red Bull have won every race this season and if Verstappen gets away cleanly, it will probably take a rainstorm or a mistake to trip him up. The Dutchman is almost nailed on to claim a third successive drivers’ title this year, with team-mate Sergio Perez his only realistic challenger (and Perez’s chances nosedived yesterday as the Mexican crashed on the very first corner of qualifying, ensuring he will start from the back of the grid). That it was Verstappen who eventually took pole – his first in Monaco – will disappoint the neutral. In the space of 70-odd dramatic seconds at the end of Q3, pole position changed hands four times, with first Esteban Ocon (Alpine), then Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), then Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) and finally Max Verstappen (Red Bull) all lowering the previous mark.īy the finish all four cars were separated by just two tenths of a second. Monaco gets a lot of stick for being a boring circuit these days, and perhaps this afternoon’s race around the famous harbour will end up being a snooze-fest, but you will rarely see a more exciting qualifying session than we experienced in the Principality yesterday.
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