{"id":849089,"date":"2026-06-06T19:12:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T19:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/849089\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T19:12:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T19:12:23","slug":"f1-monaco-gp-kimi-antonelli-takes-sensational-pole-as-george-russell-struggles-to-sixth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/849089\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 Monaco GP: Kimi Antonelli takes sensational pole as George Russell struggles to sixth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Formula 1 championship leader\u00a0Kimi Antonelli<\/a> took a sensational pole for the Monaco Grand Prix after pipping Max Verstappen<\/a> late on.<\/p>\n

The Mercedes<\/a> driver set a 1m12.375s, which was just 0.043s quicker than\u00a0Verstappen for his fourth pole in five grands prix while Ferrari<\/a> struggled.\u00a0That was despite the Scuderia dominating Friday practice with a 1-2 in both outings, but Saturday saw championship leader Mercedes bounce back as Antonelli topped FP3.<\/p>\n

The 19-year-old then took provisional pole with a 1m12.375s on his first Q3 lap, putting him just 0.001s ahead of Verstappen who had Ferrari\u2019s Lewis Hamilton<\/a> 0.177s behind in third.<\/p>\n

On the back foot was Hamilton\u2019s team-mate Charles Leclerc<\/a>, who aborted his opening tour after almost hitting the barriers at Massenet, so he quickly came out for a second lap.<\/p>\n

The Monegasque backed off on that one too, so\u00a0Leclerc went for a third push lap, where there was minimal traffic, and he managed to beat Antonelli\u2019s initial time by only 0.024s.<\/p>\n

That was with one minute remaining though, so others weren\u2019t finished and first to jump ahead was\u00a0Verstappen with a 1m12.094s, just before Hamilton went 0.185s slower.<\/p>\n

\"Max <\/p>\n

Max Verstappen claimed second place in qualifying<\/p>\n

Photo by: Guido De Bortoli \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Then came Antonelli with a 1m12.051s to take pole ahead of Verstappen and Hamilton, who will share the second row alongside Leclerc who hit the barriers in the final sector at the end.<\/p>\n

Fifth went to Verstappen\u2019s Red Bull team-mate Isack Hadjar<\/a> with a 1m12.434s, while it was another disappointing day for Antonelli\u2019s stablemate George Russell<\/a> in sixth.<\/p>\n

The Mercedes driver was 0.394s off the pace ahead of an all-McLaren fourth row with Oscar Piastri<\/a> seventh and Lando Norris<\/a> eighth, while ninth went to Pierre Gasly<\/a> and Liam Lawson<\/a> took 10th.<\/p>\n

It was a close scrap to reach Q3 as just two thousandths of a second separated Gasly in 10th and 11th-placed Alex Albon<\/a>, who will share the sixth row with Williams<\/a> team-mate Carlos Sainz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That marked only the second time the Grove outfit had both cars reach Q2 this season after Miami, the second qualifying session in Florida also being topped by Verstappen.<\/p>\n

In Monaco 13th went to Audi<\/a> driver Nico Hulkenberg<\/a>, who is set to be joined on the seventh row by Gasly\u2019s team-mate Franco Colapinto<\/a>, while Racing Bulls<\/a> rookie Arvid Lindblad<\/a> took 15th.<\/p>\n

Although Gabriel Bortoleto<\/a> progressed to Q2, he was unable to set a lap in the second outing so he has claimed 16th for Sunday\u2019s grid following his crash at Nouvelle Chicane late in Q1.<\/p>\n

\"Gabriel <\/p>\n

Gabriel Bortoleto had issues in qualifying<\/p>\n

Photo by: Sam Bloxham \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Audi driver was having a strong weekend up to then, but the sophomore clipped the inside barrier upon entry and caused a red flag with approximately two minutes left in the session.<\/p>\n

That caused a chaotic end to Q1, topped by Leclerc, where Sainz managed to vault his Williams out of the elimination zone and push Esteban Ocon<\/a> into 17th.<\/p>\n

That was part of a shock double Q1 exit for Haas with Oliver Bearman<\/a> in 19th, but outside of that the usual suspects were eliminated early with Cadillac\u2019s Sergio Perez<\/a> splitting the Haas cars.<\/p>\n

In 20th was his team-mate Valtteri Bottas<\/a> ahead of an all Aston Martin back row with Fernando Alonso<\/a> in 21st and Lance Stroll<\/a> occupying 22nd.<\/p>\n

F1 Monaco GP: Qualifying results\u00a0
\nAll Stats<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Formula 1 championship leader\u00a0Kimi Antonelli took a sensational pole for the Monaco Grand Prix after pipping Max Verstappen…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":849090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[10],"tags":[347019,347021,1461,347020,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-849089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-f1-monaco-gp-kimi-antonelli-takes-sensational-pole-as-george-russell-struggles-to-sixth","tag-f1-monaco-grand-prix","tag-formula-1","tag-monaco-gp","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116704757102464817","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}