The Monaco Grand Prix is celebrating its 80th birthday this year with a qualifying session for the ages and with one of the modern era’s great laps.
The grid-setting session had delivered all the unpredictability practice had promised. Between Fernando Alonso taking provisional pole after the first runs of Q3 and Max Verstappen icing the deal after the flag, top spot on the time sheet rotated hands five times, with no-one sure what the order would look like when the music stopped.
Right up until the exit of Tabac, the fast left-handed corner that rockets drivers into the Swimming Pool, it seemed Alonso was set for a fairytale first pole in more than a decade.
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Instead, under the gaze of the Monaco’s casinos, Verstappen gambled big on a win-or-bust final sector.
He was down on Alonso’s benchmark by 0.211 seconds at that point. He crossed the line 0.084 seconds up, a turnaround of 0.295 seconds in the shortest sector of the lap.
It was a remarkable feat of daring and bravery, the Dutchman at times leaning on the barriers to maximise the width of the track to hustle his car to pole.
It’s the sort of performance the Circuit de Monaco is built for. A great racing circuit it may not be, but there’s no more enthralling hour of track action than qualifying in Monte Carlo.
Saturday afternoon was just the latest compelling argument for it.
ALONSO STILL AIMING FOR VICTORY DESPITE VERSTAPPEN POLE
While the battle for pole is often considered most of the work done for victory, a front-row start at least keeps the fight alive — enough for Alonso to continue dreaming.
“You never know here in Monaco,” he said. “Anything can happen.
“I think it‘s a long race. I don’t think that overtaking opportunities will come at all, as it is Monaco, but this is a very demanding race on the car, on the gearbox, on the brakes.
“There are a lot of things that you need to take care of over 78 laps.”
The start may be his best opportunity to apply some pressure if he can snatch the lead, and the Spaniard sees a chance at the launch.
“The start has been very good for us this year … and Max maybe has been a little bit inconsistent sometimes,” he said. “When he’s good, it’s as good as we are and sometimes a little bit worse.”
And then there’s the weather. The forecast has been changing all week and depends on your preferred provider, but the risk of rain is highest during the afternoon during race time.
But Alonso was cautious in hoping for showers.
“We have a better chance to secure big points from a dry race,” he said. “On a chaotic, rainy day it will only help the people out of position, and I think we are in position at the moment.”
In the dry the race will be run to one stop, and the undercut tends not to be powerful here given the leader can lap at a slow pace in the first stint to prevent a pit stop window from forming further down in the pack.
But a different tyre choice at the start or a better executed stop can be the difference between victory and defeat. Timing is also crucial given the propensity for yellow flags and safety cars.
“We have to be focused, very concentrated, we have to be sharp on the strategy, pit stops,” Alonso said.
“If an opportunity comes, we will take it.”
From second place Alonso might not be favourite, but he’s certainly in the fight. And with the two drivers battling without their teammates nearby, it’ll be a straight titanic fight between two of the sport’s greatest.
In other words, it will be essential viewing.
PÉREZ PUTS MAJOR DENT IN TITLE ASPIRATIONS
The so-called king of streets has been dethroned, and at an incredibly inconvenient time for this championship hopes.
There is no worse place on the calendar to start out of position. Pérez, in a pole-getting Red Bull Racing RB19, is starting from as far out of position as possible — the very back, some 19 positions behind teammate Max Verstappen.
The Mexican misjudged his entry speed into Sainte Devote as track grip ramped up and slid helplessly into the barrier. His left-rear wheel caught the wall and instantly snapped its suspension, and the force of the general whack spat the car back into the middle of the road, where he retired from the session.
“It’s an unbelievable day, a distraught Pérez said. “I cannot believe what I have done. It just caught me by surprise
“I didn’t feel like I overpushed. That was a big mistake on my side, and I’m very sorry to my team.”
Pérez has made no secrets of his title ambitions this season, and he came within a point of the championship lead after the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix at the start of the year.
He arrived in Monaco with a 14-point deficit to Verstappen. It’s now not unreasonable to think he could leave the principality with that margin extended to 39 points. A bonus point for a Verstappen fastest lap would make that a round 40.
That’s perilously close to two clear grand prix victories in Verstappen’s favour. Even with 16 rounds to go after Monte Carlo, that would be a devastating blow.
And short of some truly wacky occurrences on Sunday, the bottom line is there’s not much Pérez can do about it from the back of the grid this weekend.
“I’m super disappointed today with myself, and I know tomorrow it’s going to be an impossible race.” He said. “It’s going to be a nightmare.”
So much for the king of street tracks.
LUCKLESS LECLERC’S HORRIBLE HOME RUN CONTINUES
Ferrari had reasons to think on Friday that it could be the obvious candidate to challenge Red Bull Racing for pole, but by Saturday the weekend was already unravelling.
Set-up changes overnight had made the car more difficult to drive, and though things improved in time for qualifying, Leclerc was left playing catch-up all the way to Q3.
Third on the time sheet just 0.106 seconds off pole was excellent damage limitation and at least kept the Monegasque in with a shout, but that was before the Leclerc Monaco curse was taken into account.
In 2018 he retired from the race with brake failure. In 2019 he had pole-getting pace but a qualifying strategy blunder dropped him out in Q1, and he crashed trying to desperately recover ground.
In 2021 he scored pole but failed to take the grid due to a gearbox failure.
Last year he against started from pole only for a series of pit stop errors to drop him off the podium.
Sure enough bad luck has struck again this year, with the home favourite slapped with a three-place grid penalty for impeding Lando Norris in Q3.
The stewards found that Leclerc himself wasn’t to blame; the pit wall had failed to tell him Norris was fast approaching behind him through the tunnel, arguably the most dangerous part of the track.
Ferrari had been too distracted telling him about Alonso and then Verstappen pipping him for pole.
Leclerc will therefore start the race from sixth, with Esteban Ocon, Carlos Sainz and Lewis Hamilton ahead of him.
His hopes for a home win will surely have to go another year.
ALPINE’S REDEMPTION DAY — IF IT CAN CONVERT IN THE RACE
Alpine’s last three weeks have been dominated by CEO Laurent Rossi’s evisceration of his own team for failing to capitalise on its opportunities this year.
Really the pressure has been on the French team all season. It targeted fourth at the top of the midfield for 2023, but Aston Martin’s big jump up the constructors table has swung the spotlight firmly on Enstone for failing to follow.
But on a weekend the focus has been on Aston’s chances of a fairytale pole and win, Alpine has risen to the challenge.
Esteban Ocon strung together a Q3 lap that for a brief few moments looked like a pole-winner.
It wasn’t to be, but 0.188 seconds off and fourth in qualifying — third after Leclerc’s penalty — was a mighty performance nonetheless.
“I thought I was still on pole when I came in,” Ocon said. “Then I saw the fall of hell, which obviously doesn’t feel great, but we can be pleased with being only two tenths off a Red Bull.
“If before the weekend you’d say that we’d be in the top five, already we would have signed up. But it’s even better than that.
“I felt confident in the car from run one of FP1, being able to push a lot harder than usual and I’ve let it go 100 per cent in that last lap.
“We never stopped believing, we never backed off. Our way of working was exactly the same and it shows that you need to keep believing in F1 and that’s what we did.”
With Gasly starting seventh, and with overtaking obviously coming at a premium, Alpine has a golden opportunity to steady the ship this weekend with some major points.
PIASTRI’S BIG GAINS IN SUPER-TIGHT QUALI
Oscar Piastri’s first visit to Monaco in Formula 1 machinery seemed destined to end in a disappointing setback for the Aussie rising star heading into qualifying.
After three practice sessions he was on average 0.698 seconds slower than teammate Lando Norris, having finished 17th, 18th and 19th.
Given the tightness of the field, it was difficult to imagine him escaping the back row.
Instead what we got was a performance that was just 0.018 seconds shy of cracking the top 10 and another competitive session in which he was the sport’s top rookie performer.
It mightn’t look like much, but 11th on the grid is an enormous turnaround — not that we should be surprised considering Piastri’s ability to string lessons together when it counts.
“We changed a few things on the car — we‘ve been going back and forth a little bit through the weekend — [but] before qualifying there wasn’t seven tenths in the car,” he said.
“There’ve been just a few things which, when you have so many corners and a lot of low-speed corners, the time builds up very, very quickly.
“It was kind of almost the case of once I fixed one thing, the rest of it came more naturally as well.
“But I think I just became more comfortable.
“I‘d always sort of started the first lap on the back foot, trying to catch up, and I think I started qualifying a bit better this time and then just had a bit more confidence through the rest of the session.”
The performance puts him right on the cusp of another points finish — which would be a deserved reward after a mammoth improvement to keep his strong maiden campaign very much on track.
