Ricciardo surprises and grabs pole position in Monaco

  • Daniel Ricciardo

Daniel Ricciardo won the pole position for the 2016 Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix. Red Bull Racing’s driver drove a blistering lap to beat a pair of Mercedes drivers.

Right after the start of the qualifying session it was stopped after the engine on Felipe Nasr’s Sauber gave up in a big way. Max Verstappen, the winner at Catalunya circuit two weeks ago, was the next out of qualifying after he has crashed into the barriers. Dutch teenager made a mistake and lost control of his car, but luckily he was unhurt.

Max Verstappe

Max Verstappen crashed in Q1

Sebastian Vettel was the fastest in the first qualifying round with a lap time 1:14.610 while along with Nasr and Verstappen, out of Q2 were Pascal Wehrlein, Rio Haryanto, Marcus Ericsson and Jolyon Palmer.

In the second round of the qualifying session, Lewis Hamilton for a quite long time was at the top, but on the last lap, Nico Rosberg set the fastest lap time – 1:14.043, what was only 0.013s than the result of the reigning champion. On the other side, Kevin Magnussen, Esteban Gutierrez, Romain Grosjean, Jenson Button, Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas were eliminated.

Nico Rosberg Mercedes

Nico Rosberg, Mercedes

Hamilton had a problem with his Mercedes at the beginning of the final qualifying round and was forced to go back in the garage. Daniel Ricciardo had a fantastic lap (1:13.622) and surprisingly won the pole position for the race on Sunday. Rosberg will start from the second place while Hamilton took third place.

Sebastian Vettel clinched fourth place, Nico Hulkenberg is fifth while Kimi Raikkonen took the sixth position, but will lose five places on the grid because of an unscheduled gearbox change on his Ferrari.


Click here for the complete results from Monaco!


Photo: formula1.com

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