QUALIFYING REPORT
feat, was typical, “Oh good, thanks guys.”
But added later in parc ferme, “It’s
great. It definitely wasn’t easy this
weekend but we managed to fix the car for
qualifying. It’s tricky to go fast around this
circuit. It’s the best place to race and we’ll
try to make the most of it tomorrow. It’s
been difficult to be consistent but the car
was great. It was good fun.”
Pole at Monaco was the 2007 F1 world
champion’s first since the 2008 French
Grand Prix and the 17th of his career. He
won the sport’s crown jewel race only once
as a McLaren driver in 2005.
It’s a first Ferrari front row lockout in
Monaco since 2008 and only the third
since 1979. Back then, Jody Scheckter
took pole position with Gilles Villeneuve
second. Scheckter went on to win the race.
Vettel had topped the timing sheets
in the morning session, but when it
mattered lacked the firepower to usurp his
teammate, “Well done to Kimi. Arguably
you can always go a bit faster. The car’s
been very good. I don’t know what caused
Mercedes trouble but we could improve
session by session.”
“It’s one of the highlights of the season.
It’s difficult to get everything right but
when you do everyone is cheering,” added
Vettel.
Valtteri Bottas salvaged some pride
for Mercedes, who have been on the back
foot since FP2 on Thursday, with a very
close third place on the timing screens,
an astounding 0.002 of a second shy of
Vettel’s effort.”