Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc took pole position for the Monaco Grand Prix from McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.
Leclerc, the form driver all weekend and looking at one with the circuit in his Ferrari, beat the Australian by 0.154 seconds.
World champion Max Verstappen, struggling all weekend in his Red Bull, could manage only sixth place after hitting the wall at the first corner on his final lap.
Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz was third, ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris and Mercedes George Russell, whose team-mate Lewis Hamilton was seventh.
The scale of Leclerc’s achievement was apparent from the lap times - his margin over Piastri was bigger than the gap separating the McLaren driver from Verstappen in sixth.
Both Piastri and Sainz paid tribute to the level of Leclerc’s performance through the weekend, saying they recognised going into qualifying that he would be difficult to beat. Sainz said: “Charles has been amazing all weekend.”
It was Leclerc’s third pole in the last four races in Monaco, but despite the importance of starting at the front on a track where overtaking is the most difficult on the calendar, he and Ferrari have not managed to convert the previous two.
Leclerc said: “It was nice. The feeling after a qualifying lap is always very special here. Really, really happy about the lap, the excitement is so high but it feels really good.
“But now I know more often than not in there past qualifying is not everything, as much as it counts, we need to put everything together coming the Sunday, and in the past years we did not manage to do it, but we are a stronger team now and I am sure we can achieve the target.”
Sainz faces an investigation for impeding Williams’ Alex Albon - who qualified an impressive ninth in the team’s best performance of the year - in the first session.
RB’s Yuki Tsunoda and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly - in his team’s first appearance in the top 10 in 2024 - sandwiched the Williams.
This is the first race this season at which Verstappen has been beaten to pole position.
Quick in the first sector, the car was losing time over the bumps and kerbs in the second and third sectors of the lap and Red Bull never found a solution.
Although Verstappen hit the wall at Sainte Devote on his final lap, he had been only third - also behind Leclerc and Piastri - on his first attempt and did not look to have the pace to challenge for pole.
Verstappen said: “I didn’t expect a lot from it anyway because the whole weekend already we were struggling massively with the kerbs and bumps and if you have that problem around here you’re really in trouble.
“We really tried a lot on the car. We changed the balance but we didn’t change the problems and that is every bumpy corner and kerbs I have to drive around all the kerbs and that is not the way around here.”
Hamilton had been battling for a top four place through practice and was mystified by his loss of pace in qualifying.
“Lap was pretty good,” he said. “Have been looking so good so it is of course frustrating to be P7. But something happens when the car gets to qualifying and I automatically lose a couple of tenths this year. Very strange.”
Verstappen's team-mate Sergio Perez fared even worse - the Mexican was knocked out in the first session after suffering with traffic and will start 18th.
He also said that avoiding some advertising stickers on the track that been rubbed off the barriers at Portier had had an effect.
Norris said he was lucky not to have his qualifying ruined by the same stickers.
“All the hoarding and stickers came off and got stuck under my car which was a bit of a mess and shouldn’t happen in F1,” Norris said. “I was lucky to get through.
“I had to pit for it to come off. it’s a bit silly, in my opinion. We said it yesterday and that it would happen again.
“They said they were going to fix it but obviously it wasn’t fixed. It’s a shame you’re just having to get lucky, and I got lucky, otherwise it would have ruined my qualifying. It’s not acceptable that can ruin your weekend for some stickers. They need to find a better solution.”
Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso was another to suffer with traffic and starts 16th. “I found myself in the wrong place, wrong time,” Alonso said, adding that he felt he should have been able to qualifying around seventh or eighth.
After qualifying, the Haas cars of Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen, which had qualified 12th and 15th, were disqualified for a rear-wing infringement and will have to start from the back.
