Charles Leclerc has delighted his local fans by grabbing provisional pole in a dramatic split qualifying session Friday afternoon at the Grand Prix de Monaco, leading the way in Group A ahead of Oliver Rowland before watching Group B from the pits as Alexander Albon headed the second group but missed the Monegasque’s time by just one hundredth of a second.
The sun emerged between free practice and qualifying, and with it the track temperatures increased to 40˚ ahead of the start of Group A’s 16 minute session, with all of the odd-numbered cars heading straight out on track. Leclerc made the first competitive time at the 4 minute mark before being usurped by Sergio Canamasas and Nobuharu Matsushita, but with 2 minutes remaining the local driver reclaimed the top spot with a time of 1:19.309, ahead of Rowland and Matsushita.
A big lock up at Ste Devote next time through put the brakes on any improvement on his last lap, but with Matsushita jumping the kerb out of the Swimming Pool complex and finding the wall the session was over for everyone just before the clock wound down to zero.
The even-numbered drivers in Group B were out mere minutes later, and they had the advantage of a target: Sergio Sette Camara set the first competitive time before being pushed off P1 by Artem Markelov and then Albon, with the Thai driver improving on his own best lap with 3 minutes remaining for a time of 1:19.321. Markelov and Albon both pushed hard on their final lap, setting the fastest first and second sectors respectively, but traffic meant that they were unable to improve on their times, with Norman Nato finishing third behind them in the second group.
With pole going to the fastest driver over both groups, Leclerc had done enough to hold off his GP3 rival for his third pole position in a row ahead of Albon, Rowland and Markelov, with the grid formed of the 2 groups lining up side by side, with Nyck De Vries to lose 3 places from his Barcelona sprint race penalty for todays feature race.
2017 Race of Monaco - Post qualifying press conference
FIA Formula 2: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the press conference for today’s qualifying session here in Monaco: joining us are polesitter Charles Leclerc from PREMA Racing, in second we have Alexander Albon from ART Grand Prix, and in third place we have Oliver Rowland from DAMS. Charles, your third pole position in a row, and it’s in your home town: how does it feel?
Charles Leclerc: Amazing! Really, really amazing. It was quite scary to be in the first group and then watch Alex and the others in the second group as the times were going down, but by two hundredths I think we made it. I’m very, very happy, and I definitely need to thank the team for a great car. It’s good to start from pole in my home town!
FIA Formula 2: You didn’t get to finish the final lap because of yellow flags, but what how was your pole lap?
Charles: Quite okay: I did a big flat spot in the first corner, but after that it felt quite okay. The first sector wasn’t great, but overall it was quite good: I had a moment in the tunnel where I touched the wall, but luckily we didn’t bend or break anything.
FIA Formula 2: Congratulations. Alex, just 0.01 off pole today and your best qualifying of the year: how are the emotions?
Alexander Albon: Really good! We’ve had a tough couple of races in terms of qualy in Bahrain and Barcelona: we were fighting in terms of flags and so on and couldn’t show our pace, but like Charles I really have to thank the team because the car today was really, really good. It was there for pole today, to be honest, and there were a couple of mistakes but I’m still happy to be up at the front for Monaco.
FIA Formula 2: How crucial is it to start at the front at a circuit like this?
Alexander: It’s everything, really. Even in practice just trying to get past drivers who weren’t even on fast laps was quite difficult, so we’ll see.
FIA Formula 2: Oliver, 0.2 off pole today: how happy were you with your lap?
Oliver Rowland: Pretty happy: in terms of a good lap there wasn’t much left in the first one, and on the second one where everyone seemed to go a bit better I didn’t have the tyres left, so we’ll have to look into that. But I’m pretty happy with our performance, although I’m a little bit annoyed that these GP3 guys have just come along like this, and in Monaco especially! It’s a bit tough to accept, but we’ll just have to improve: it’s my best qualifying actually for a long time, there was a one off in Spa but other than that I haven’t been in the top two rows, so we’re making improvements and we’ll look forward to the race tomorrow.
FIA Formula 2: Starting from the second row is good, but it’s tough to overtake here: what are your best opportunities to move forward tomorrow?
Oliver: The start is one area, but it’s a very short run to turn one so it would be difficult to get around 2 cars, but we’ve got to stay calm because it’s a long season and we have to score good points again. The pitstop will be interesting because you tend to be able to shorten or extend the stint quite a lot here, and if there’s more than one car in the battle it’s interesting: if I’m third I can take a risk, or maybe one of these two will take a risk. So it will be an interesting race towards the end, and you never know with a VSC or something like that, but we will see.
