MONACO GP – QUALIFYING RESULTS

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Report – Nico Rosberg claimed his second successive Monaco Grand Prix pole position despite going off on his final flying lap.

The German was the faster of the Mercedes duo on the first runs in the Q3 top 10 shootout, shading Lewis Hamilton by 59 thousandths of a second.

He then made a mistake on his final flier, locking up and sliding up the escape road at Mirabeau.

But as Hamilton, who was behind Rosberg on track, was slow in the middle sector of his final lap because of the resulting yellow flags, the Briton was unable to attempt to defeat Rosberg.

Daniel Ricciardo continued his strong weekend by beating Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel to third, with the Ferraris of Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen claiming the third row.

Final Times:

Pos Driver                Team                  Time       Gap    
 1. Nico Rosberg          Mercedes              1m15.989s         
 2. Lewis Hamilton        Mercedes              1m16.048s  +0.059s
 3. Daniel Ricciardo      Red Bull-Renault      1m16.384s  +0.395s
 4. Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      1m16.547s  +0.558s
 5. Fernando Alonso       Ferrari               1m16.686s  +0.697s
 6. Kimi Raikkonen        Ferrari               1m17.389s  +1.400s
 7. Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Renault    1m17.540s  +1.551s
 8. Kevin Magnussen       McLaren-Mercedes      1m17.555s  +1.566s
 9. Daniil Kvyat          Toro Rosso-Renault    1m18.090s  +2.101s
10. Sergio Perez          Force India-Mercedes  1m18.327s  +2.338s
                          Q3 cut-off time:      1m17.755s  **     
11. Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes  1m17.846s  +1.492s
12. Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes      1m17.988s  +1.634s
13. Valtteri Bottas       Williams-Renault      1m18.082s  +1.728s
14. Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault         1m18.196s  +1.842s
15. Pastor Maldonado      Lotus-Renault         1m18.356s  +2.002s
16. Felipe Massa          Williams-Renault                        
                          Q2 cut-off time:      1m18.616s*        
17. Esteban Gutierrez     Sauber-Ferrari        1m18.741s  +1.184s
18. Adrian Sutil          Sauber-Ferrari        1m18.745s  +1.188s
19. Jules Bianchi         Marussia-Cosworth     1m19.332s  +1.775s
20. Max Chilton           Marussia-Cosworth     1m19.928s  +2.371s
21. Kamui Kobayashi       Caterham-Renault      1m20.133s  +2.576s
22. Marcus Ericsson       Caterham-Renault      1m21.732s  +4.175s

QUOTES

Kimi Raikkonen (6th) – “I’m not happy with this qualifying, because even though we worked hard on the set-up, making several changes, my feeling with the car didn’t improve much. Right from Thursday I had to fight to find the best solution and the time lost during the second free practice session certainly didn’t help. On top of that, we are not able to make the tyres work well here and in that situation, it’s not easy to put together a good lap, especially on a track where you don’t get a second chance. Sixth place is not ideal, but neither is it a disaster and tomorrow we will do our best to get the most out of it all.”

Pat Fry, Ferrari chassis director – “Finding the right window to put in the quick laps and avoid traffic is always a crucial aspect of qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix, especially in Q1 and Q2. Here, the tyres are taking a few more laps to be at their best and this slightly complicated the process, but luckily we didn’t have any major problems with either car. The gap has come down to the Red Bulls and also to Mercedes, but the result hasn’t changed since the previous races. In any case, both Fernando and Kimi got the most out of the F14 T, which continues to improve step by step. It will be a long and demanding race tomorrow for the whole team, with the thousands of variables this Grand Prix can throw up. The chance of rain is only slight, but nevertheless we want to be prepared to tackle both scenarios to give our drivers the best chance of bringing home as many points as possible.”