Max Verstappen denied Fernando Alonso his first pole position for 11 years in a thrilling qualifying session for the Monaco Grand Prix.
The polesitter changed four times in the last three minutes as Esteban Ocon, Charles Leclerc and Alonso all briefly led before the championship leader snuck the fastest lap by just 0.084seconds with his final throw of the dice.
Red Bull’s hopes of locking out another front row were denied when last year’s Monaco winner Sergio Perez spun at turn 1 just minutes into the qualifying hour and hit the wall bringing out a red flag.
Quite what the repercussions prove to be in the title fight remains to be seen but, at a circuit where it is notoriously difficult to overtake, the Mexican has his work cut out starting 20th and last of the grid.
Verstappen had warned that Red Bull faced their biggest threat of the season in the principality, and so it proved as all manner of drivers and teams threatened the top order of the leaderboard.
Lewis Hamilton had sounded a positive note following his first practice runs in the heavily upgraded W14 but complained of finding the car difficult to drive in qualifying.
He needed to pull off last-lap escapes to sneak into Q2 and then Q1, and eventually had to settle for sixth on the grid in a far less dramatic Q3 for the Briton. Team-mate George Russell will begin Sunday’s race in eighth.
Verstappen had gone into the weekend with a point to prove after last year’s qualifying in which a crash by Perez, one the Dutchman deemed intentional, denied him a shot at pole position.
And while he left it late, he will be the favourite for the race although Alonso, who last won a grand prix back in 2013, will be hopeful he can get the better start off the front row and hold off a chasing Verstappen.
After the Perez incident, it proved a bizarre Q1 with Yuki Tsunoda and Alex Albon unlikely figures in the top three at the end with Verstappen top despite a brush with the wall. Barely a second separated the field, bar the stricken Perez.
Hamilton locked up his right front late on to end his lap but just snuck in a final lap. And it was a repeat in Q2, surviving with another last-ditch effort in a session in which Lando Norris clattered the wall and heavily damaged the front right side of his car.
Come the final qualifying shoot-out, it was wide open. Both Ferraris looked quick while the Alpines of Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly also surprisingly found themselves in the conversation, before ending fourth and seventh respectively.
In the end, it was once again Verstappen’s day with the last quick lap of the whole of qualifying.
