25/05/2024
NEWS STORY
Scuderia Ferrari HP has secured its first pole position of the season courtesy of Charles Leclerc who dominated proceedings, earning the right to start his home race from the number one grid slot for the third time in his career.
It was his 24th pole position, which puts him second on the list of Ferrari pole sitters behind Michael Schumacher (with 58) and ahead of Niki Lauda on 23. For the team it is number 250, the 13th on the streets of Monaco. Carlos Sainz also performed brilliantly today and missed out on a front row start by less than a tenth of a second and he will line up in third place tomorrow. Clearly, the aim is to win the race come the end of 78 closely fought laps in the Grand Prix that gets underway at 15.00 CEST.
Charles and Carlos progressed to the final phase of qualifying without too much trouble. They each had two sets of new Soft tyres available. On his first run Leclerc set a time of 1'10"418, good enough for provisional pole, while Sainz stopped the clocks in 1'10"673. On his second set, the Monegasque got down to 1'10"270, although as it turned out, his first lap would also have been good enough for pole as Oscar Piastri's time for second place was a 1'10"424. On his last run, Sainz also improved, coming within 49 thousandths of the Australian's time to take third place on the grid.
Tonight, the team will prepare for the race down to the last detail to ensure Charles has all he needs to deliver the win at his home race and to help Carlos get ahead of Piastri, even if overtaking is very difficult at this track. None of the teams have spent much time working on race pace, but from what was seen towards the end of the third free practice session, the gaps between the top three or four teams seem very close.
Charles Leclerc: I'm very happy. We were fast right from the beginning of the weekend and I really think the whole team deserves this pole position. We know how important is track position here and having the possibility to start in front of everyone gives us the best chances.
We know from the past that we have to win the race tomorrow on track but so far we have done an amazing job. Of course, I want to thank all the people here as I felt their support right from Wednesday. Now we have to complete the job, and we will do our best to bring home this victory.
Carlos Sainz: I feel that I've progressed well today after a difficult start to the weekend yesterday. Of course I'm not satisfied as I would have preferred to be on the front row. However, we have a good fighting chance for tomorrow and we still have a long race ahead of us.
Congrats to Charles for the pole position at home! Let's race.
Fred Vasseur, Team Principal Scuderia Ferrari HP: We know how important is pole position at Monaco, but we also know there are no points on Saturday and the target for tomorrow is to confirm the position with Charles and possibly gain one with Carlos.Charles has done an amazing job from the beginning of the weekend supported by the whole team and was able to progress steadily as the track was evolving.
Carlos was also able to constantly improve getting more and more confidence with the car and the track and at the end was fighting for a place on the front row.Looking forward to tomorrow I expect a close fight between McLaren, Mercedes, Red Bull and us. It will be interesting.
Check out our Saturday gallery from Monaco here.