Kimi Raikkonen secured his first pole position for nine years on Saturday when he outpaced his Ferrari team-mate Sebastian Vettel in a dramatic qualifying session for Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix.
Photo from video
The 37-year-old Finn, who had not taken pole position for 128 races stretching back to the French Grand Prix of 2008, dominated the afternoon’s action to clock a fastest lap of one minute and 12.178 seconds.
That left him 0.043 seconds ahead of the world championship leader and three-time champion Vettel who in turn was just two-thousandths of a second faster than third placed Valtteri Bottas of Mercedes.
The Finn’s Mercedes team-mate Briton Lewis Hamilton failed to make progress from Q2 and missed the cut for the top ten shootout, qualifying 14th after a miserable afternoon.
“Obviously, it’s great,” said Raikkonen afterwards. “We’ll try to make the best of it tomorrow… Yes, of course it is good, but here it is all about the fine details.”
Dutch teenager Max Verstappen took fourth place ahead of his Red Bull team-mate Australian Daniel Ricciardo, Spaniard Carlos Sainz of Toro Rosso, Mexican Sergio Perez of Force India and Frenhcman Romain Grosjean of Haas.
Briton Jenson Button, back from retirement to replace two-time champion Spaniard Fernando Alonso who is racing in the Indianapolis 500, was ninth for McLaren Honda ahead of his team-mate Belgian Stoffel Vandoorne
Button has a 15-place grid penalty for engine replacements and that is expected to lift Hamilton up to 13th.
