Australian Daniel Ricciardo will start on the 14th of the Monaco Grand Prix (AEST) on Sunday night after enduring another disappointing qualifying session.
A day after falling off the barriers in training, Ricciardo’s Monaco nightmare continued when he was knocked out in Q2 after two laps.
It was Ricciardo’s McLaren teammate Lando Norris who again finished the best of the pair in fifth place in the standings.
“FP3 (3 free workouts) was just trying to pick up the pace a bit and get back to speed, and then we also made some car changes for qualifying, and I think we were in a decent place,” Ricciardo said. he told Sky Sports.
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“P1, I was taking some good steps [but] a few mistakes too. So I think when we put it all together, it really looked like we were there, let’s say competitive where it was.
Daniel Ricciardo of Australia and McLaren walking in the Pitlane of Monaco (Getty)
“And then in the second quarter, you can only see in your delta, just don’t make the gains you should make with the evolution of the track and all that.”
“Ultimately, it becomes very difficult to feel where the limit is and how much more needs to be covered,” he said. “I do not know what the word is. It’s frustrating.
“It’s just confusing, confusing not to take the kind of natural steps that are needed.”
Meanwhile, Charles Leclerc of Ferrari will be out on the pole for Sunday’s race.
In his home track, where he goes from his apartment to the field, Leclerc hopes to finish for the first time and regain the lead in Formula 1 points.
Leclerc was expected to lead the field from pole position at the Monaco Grand Prix, the same position he held a year ago. But he didn’t even start the race because he crashed his Ferrari at the end of qualifying and the car couldn’t be repaired in time for him to compete.
In three previous starts on the streets of the city of Monaco, Leclerc has twice withdrawn with accidental damage and has not been able to start. This Sunday, he hopes that a victory will make him ahead of the current champion Max Verstappen in the F1 classification and has rejected any idea that has cursed the streets of his hometown.
Ferrari Monaco driver Charles Leclerc (D) receives pole position trophy from Liberty CEO Greg Maffei (L) after qualifying (Getty)
“I’m not superstitious at all,” Leclerc said. “So far we’ve had a quiet weekend and we start from the best place possible. We hope we have a clean race and finally have a good result at home.”
Leclerc was the fastest in two of the three training sessions, in addition to the classification.
Ferrari blocked the front row when Carlos Sainz Jr. he finished second though and was nailed with Red Bull’s disabled Sergio Perez with 30 seconds left in Saturday’s qualifying.
“I saw the yellow flag, I noticed that the car in front of it had crashed and you don’t see where it crashed, so you go into the corner without knowing where it will be,” Sainz said. “I rubbed harder and managed to hit it with the back of the car. It would have been a good stop if I had saved it, because there was basically no time to save it. But that’s what happens in Monaco. “
Pole for Charles Leclerc from Monaco (Getty)
He concluded a day full of events for Sainz, who was fined $ 37,000 for preventing Lance Stroll during final training. Sainz almost stopped on the track at the last corner with Stroll behind him after receiving what the commissioners called “a series of very incorrect messages.”
And Ferrari team manager Mattia Binotto acknowledged that reliability issues are a concern following Leclerc’s engine failure at last week’s Spanish Grand Prix. Leclerc was the leader when his Ferrari stopped and reigning F1 champion Max Verstappen won his third consecutive race and took a six-point lead over Leclerc in the standings.
“Reliability is always a concern,” Binotto said. “We’re worried, we’re looking at what happened.”
Red Bull, meanwhile, has crushed any internal drama that could have endured following the team’s orders last week that demanded Pérez relinquish the lead to Verstappen.
Red Bull director Christian Horner said the team spoke to Perez after the race in Spain, and Perez finished third in Monaco along with teammate Verstappen.
“He’s a great team player, he’s a big part of our team,” Horner said. “We saw the problems that Ferrari obviously had as a team, it was logical, not to allow drivers to fight with each other and try to accumulate those points.
“Obviously we talked about it, the reason behind that, which he fully accepted and understood. Now we’re trying to bring the fight to Ferrari this weekend.”
Norris of McLaren finished fifth, one place ahead of George Russell for Mercedes. Russell’s teammate, seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton, finished eighth and was unable to improve his position due to the red flag caused by Perez’s turn.
Fernando Alonso was seventh, while Sebastian Vettel and Esteban Ocon were ninth and tenth.
Hamilton is on track for an eighth race without a win, which would equate to his worst Mercedes race since late 2015 and early 2016. He has a record of 103 F1 victories, and even without warning. late in the classification, does not. I think he could have improved his position.
“The red flags cost me my last lap, but I don’t think it was very different,” the British veteran said. “The car feels pretty bad out there and we have to take big risks to get closer to the schedules of the cars in front of us.”
The weather forecast called for rain on Sunday night, and Leclerc wondered what he could do on the familiar streets.
“The city’s tracks are very complicated. In the wet, I’m sure Monaco is even tougher,” Leclerc said.
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