Nico leads Mercedes 1-2 in Monaco F1 Qualifying

Nico Rosberg bags pole in Formula 1 Grand Prix Monaco Qualifying

Nico Rosberg bags P1 again in Supersoft tyres in Monaco in a Mercedes 1-2. Hamilton finishes in P2. Nico Rosberg scored 1:13.876 seconds to 1:13.967 of Lewis Hamilton ie. 0.091 seconds ahead.

As is the strategy of Mercedes these days, they are tuned to be fastest in qualifying but terrible in race pace. The Pole position limelight may save the job of Ross Brawn.

The second row was occupied by Sebastian Vettel at P3 and Mark Webber at P4. Sebastian Vettel of Redbull was the only other driver to score a below 1 min14seconds time as he scored 1:13.980 as opposed to 1:14.181 of Mark Webber. Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus was on P5 followed by Fernando Alonso of Ferrari in P6. Alonso clearly appeared to be not being at ease on his car. Sergio Perez of McLaren was seventh and ahead of his illustrious teammate Jenson Button who was only 9th. Adrian Sutil of Force India was 8th and Jean-Eric Vergne of Toro Rosso was 10th.

A lot of drivers find it tough to race in the twisty street circuit of Monaco. In the name of safety, the barriers have been progressively pushed back inch by inch every year. However, the mandatory crashes every year during practice doesn’t surprise people.

This year it Felipe Massa could not participate in qualifying due to prior crash and and Jules Bianchi had one lap.

It rained during the qualifying and drivers took to the intermediate tyres. The drivers who were knocked out in the Q1 were Max Chilton, Gutierrez, Charles Pic and Paul di Resta of Force India along with Felipe Massa and Jules Bianchi.

So for the first time in his career Van der Garde could qualify to the Q2. It was a great qualifying for him as he finished in 15th position ahead of Pastor Maldonado of Williams at 16. Valeri Bottas of Williams finished in 14th position. Romain Grosjean expressed surprise over radio that he was out of the top 10. He finished in 13th position behind 11th placed Nico Hulkenberg of Sauber and 12th placed Daniel Ricciardo of Toro Rosso.

The total circuit length is 3.340 kilometers.