Monaco Grand Prix – Qualifying Results: 8th

Source: autosport.com | qualifying report: lotusf1team.com | twitter |

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A touch of Monaco magic descended on Monte Carlo this afternoon, as one of the most tightly contested qualifying sessions in recent memory kept hearts racing to the very last second.

As Q1 got underway, both E20s emerged from their respective garages sporting matching sets of yellow marked soft compound Pirelli tyres. Each set a sighter lap before the session took a twist with just 5 minutes elapsed.

Red flags waved as Sergio Perez clipped the wall through La Piscine, eventually coming to a stop at La Rascasse. Unfortunately for Kimi and Romain, both were forced to abort flying laps – Romain in particular looking very strong before having to back off and head back to base.

With the session back underway, the team held the drivers in the garage before releasing them with just over 5 minutes remaining. Romain put in a strong early lap early to put himself right at the sharp end on the soft tyres.

Kimi by contrast seemingly encountered traffic at every turn, coming under pressure in the dying moments of the first session. The Finn dived into the pits for a set of the super soft compound tyres, and promptly joined his team mate in comfortably progressing to the next stage.

Q2 was the scene of a further incident at the mid-point of the session, as Jean-Eric Vergne found himself in the wall heading down into the chicane. After a pair of steady laps early on, Both Kimi and Romain launched their E20s out of the garage with 5 minutes remaining; both using the super soft tyres.

An unbelievably tense climax to the second session saw the top 10 drivers covered by less than half a second. Both Lotus F1 Team drivers left it late to secure their places, with Romain occupying P8 and Kimi putting in a last gasp lap to secure P10.

The pole position shoot out started in a much more serene manner, but by the end drama had returned once more to the Monaco streets. With 5 minutes to go, Romain set a fantastic lap to take top spot by almost a second from his nearest rival, with Kimi slotting in a few tenths behind in P6.

It was not to last however, as a frantic finale to the day’s running saw most of the field make mad dashes for the line with mere moments to spare, with the resulting grid providing a number of big surprises.

Once the dust had settled on a breath-taking qualifying session, Kimi found himself in P8 with a 1:15.199 from 8 laps, while Romain – at one stage looking good for pole – eventually settled for P5, with a best time of 1:14.639 from 6 laps. Romain will be to P4 for tomorrow’s race, as Michael Schumacher will receive a 5 place grid penalty following his incident with Bruno Senna last time out in Barcelona.

Pos-Driver---------------Team-----------------Time-----------Gap 
 1.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes             1m14.301s
 2.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault     1m14.381s
 3.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes             1m14.448s
 4.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes     1m14.583s
 5.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault        1m14.639s
 6.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari              1m14.948s
 7.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari              1m15.049s
 8.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault        1m15.199s
 9.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault     1m15.245s
10.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault     no time
Q2 cut-off time: 1m15.322s Gap **
11.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes 1m15.421s   + 0.510
12.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari       1m15.508s   + 0.597
13.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes     1m15.536s   + 0.625
14.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault     1m15.709s   + 0.798
15.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes 1m15.718s   + 0.807
16.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m15.878s   + 0.967
17.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m16.885s   + 1.974
Q1 cut-off time: 1m16.491s Gap *
18.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault     1m16.538s   + 1.120
19.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault     1m17.404s   + 1.986
20.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth    1m17.947s   + 2.529
21.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth         1m18.096s   + 2.678
22.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth    1m18.476s   + 3.058
23.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth         1m19.310s   + 3.892
24.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari       no time

Team quotes:

Kimi Raikkonen – 8th: “For sure we’re not very happy after that session. Since the first practice we’ve been a little bit behind where we should have been and we’ve been trying to catch-up. The car is fine, the biggest problem today was trying to get the tyres working as it seemed to be a bit tricky to get them up to temperature. I could have been a bit faster on my best lap, but I went a little bit too deep in the swimming pool section. It’s a bit disappointing but you can’t get it right every time. At a normal race track you would be able to gain positions through overtaking, but in Monaco this is difficult. That said, anything can happen here so hopefully we can achieve something good tomorrow.”

Romain Grosjean – 5th: “We are not as high on the grid as we wanted to be, but things were very tight today. I did a very good lap in the first part of Q3 but then I couldn’t improve on my second set of tyres. This was a shame because our strategy was perfect for the last part of qualifying. The traffic wasn’t too bad but I missed out in sector two. I think pole position was within reach. P4 is not exactly where we wanted to be but the race will be long. It’s Monaco, it will be difficult; nonetheless we know that the car is quite good on high fuel and with the tyres, so let’s see what we can do and put the best strategy into place.”

Video: post-qualifying interview