LECLER SUCCEEDS, FERRARI ON POLE FOR MONACO GRAND PRIX

Charles Leclerc took pole position for the Monaco Grand Prix for the third time in his career, beating Oscar Piastri, as championship leader Max Verstappen's hopes of back-to-back poles in the principality were ended by a brush with the wall at the end of Q3.

Local hero Leclerc went into qualifying having been fastest in FP2 and FP3 and though Ferrari driver said that he had not felt as confident in the opening session of qualifying the Monegasque delivered in Q3, taking provisional pole with his first run and then improving to 1:10.270 to take pole 0.154s ahead of Piastri.

"The feeling after a qualifying lap is always very special here and I’m really happy about the lap," said Leclrc afterwards. "I know more often than not in the past, qualifying is not everything. As much as it helps a lot for Sunday's race, we need to put everything together coming Sunday."

"And in the past years, we didn't manage to do so. But we are a stronger team. We are in a stronger position. And I'm sure we can achieve great things tomorrow. And obviously, the win is the target."

Piastri impressed with his second front row qualifying spot in succession, while Sainz Jr. improved throughout to take a third place the Spaniard felt was out of reach earlier in the weekend.

"It was an improvement for me. I've been struggling all weekend with confidence and feeling with the car. So overall, to step it up and be P3 was a step forward. Obviously not entirely happy because I wish I could have been fighting for pole position."

"But the truth is that Charles has been doing an outstanding job. The car has been amazing all this weekend and he managed to extract the most out of it."

After the first runs of Q3 Verstappen held third place, just over a tenths of a second off Leclerc’s provisional pole time but on his final lap of the session he clattered the barrier on exit at Sainte Devote and immediately aborted his lap.

He qualified sixth. Lando Norris took fourth place for McLaren ahead of George Russell, while Lewis Hamilton finished seventh ahead of impressive Yuki Tsunoda and Alex Albon. The top 10 shootout order was completed by Pierre Gasly.

Gasly’s final flying lap of Q2 bounced Alpine team-mate Esteban Ocon out of the final session, with the Ocon exiting the middle session ahead of Nico Hülkenberg, Daniel Ricciardo, Lance Stroll, and the second Haas’ of Kevin Magnussen.

Fernando Alonso and Sergio Perez were the biggest casualties of the opening segment. Alonso dropped out in P16 ahead of Logan Sargeant. Perez looked ill at ease throughout and after failing to put together a strong lap at any stage in the session he exited in P18 ahead of Sauber pair Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu.