Kimi Antonelli edges Max Verstappen in a chaotic Monaco Grand Prix Qualifying session as Charles Leclerc’s home race curse strikes again.
Q1: Disaster for Bortoleto and Audi
The Cadillac pair of Bottas and Pérez led the field out of the pitlane for the start of the session but it was home hero Leclerc who set the initial pace with a 1:14.141, ahead of Norris.
Behind them, Verstappen set the fastest first sector but his lap was ruined when he hit traffic midway through Sector 2, leaving him in seventh at the end of the first runs.
Mistakes for Russell put him tenth, what looked to be a lack of grip caused him a few slides multiple times throughout his lap, leaving him massively off the pace of the frontrunners.
The red flag was thrown with 2 minutes left to go in the session to recover Bortoleto’s stricken Audi. The young Brazilian found the inside wall on the entrance to the Nouvelle Chicane, breaking his front left suspension and ending his Qualifying.
Q1 resumed with 2 minutes 11 seconds remaining, only Sainz was able to put in a meaningful lap, catapulting him out of the bottom six and into Q2.
Eliminated:
P17: Esteban Ocon
P18: Sergio Pérez
P19: Ollie Bearman
P20: Valtteri Bottas
P21: Fernando Alonso
P22: Lance Stroll
Q2: Red Bull set the pace
Verstappen’s session didn’t start too smoothly. An unsafe release from Williams with Sainz put him in the tracks of the 4 time world champion, who expressed his frustration over the radio. The incident was noted by the stewards.
Antonelli dominated the first half of the session, with Verstappen lurking closely behind. Meanwhile, Antonelli’s Mercedes team mate Russell was still fighting oversteer, almost ending up in the wall at the Swimming Pool section after another huge slide.
In the final runs of Q2, Red Bull found their pace. Verstappen topped the session with a 1:12.499, with his team mate Hadjar taking P3, 2 tenths shy of Verstappen. Antonelli separated the pair.
Eliminated:
P11: Alex Albon
P12: Carlos Sainz
P13: Nico Hulkenburg
P14: Franco Colapinto
P15: Arvid Lindblad
P16: Gabriel Bortoleto
Q3: Kimi on top
The drama of Q3 surrounded Leclerc, he faced all the pressure after aborting his first lap and peeling into the pits after a moment through Massenet. He lost over a second to the fastest time and almost met the wall.
McLaren’s Piastri kissed the barrier with his rear left tyre on his first lap at La Rascasse, leaving him P7 and with it all to do, just like Leclerc.
Ferrari chose to beat the Q3 traffic and run in the gap with their Monegasque driver. With 5 minutes to go, it wasn’t going his way at first, being over a second down on Antonelli’s fastest time of a 1:12.375, forcing him to once again abandon his lap.
His luck changed on the third time of asking, and Leclerc went fastest temporarily, with a tiny margin of 0.02 seconds to Antonelli, sending the Monaco crowd into a brief frenzy.
The excitement was unfortunately short lived as Verstappen stormed to provisional pole position ahead of his long term rival, Hamilton.
Adding to a difficult Q3 session, Leclerc hit the wall, bringing out the yellow flags in the final sector. His session ended with a rear right puncture and a P4 start to his home race tomorrow behind Hamilton, a second row lock out for the Scuderia.
McLaren and Norris’ early pace faded in Q3, the current champion only managing P8 behind his team mate Piastri in P7. The team starts their 1000th Grand Prix tomorrow but they’re unfortunately unlikely to celebrate their milestone on the podium.
A frantic end to the session saw Antonelli come out on top once more in 2026, giving him his first pole position around the iconic Monaco streets, one he likely won’t forget.
He pipped Verstappen by only 0.043 seconds and will line up against the fierce champion in tomorrow’s Grand Prix. Quite an exciting front row if you ask us!
The final top 10:
P1: Kimi Antonelli
P2: Max Verstappen
P3: Lewis Hamilton
P4: Charles Leclerc
P5: Isack Hadjar
P6: George Russell
P7: Oscar Piastri
P8: Lando Norris
P9: Pierre Gasly
P10: Liam Lawson
Image Credit: Formula 1 via X