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Italy’s Gabriele Mini (Prema Racing), who started from pole position, completed a historic double by winning the Formula 3 Monaco Grand Prix for the second year in a row, a few hours before the 81st Formula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco.
A member of the Alpine Drivers Academy, Mini was never troubled in a race slowed three times by the exit of the safety car. He finished right at the top of the podium, accompanied by Australian Christian Mansell (ART Grand Prix), who is not related to Nigel, the F1 world champion, and by Briton Luke Browning (HiTech), another candidate for the F2 crown at the end of the season.
The race, scheduled to last 27 laps, was slowed down three times, firstly when Charly Wurz hit the safety rail at the Portier turn, in Lap 1. Then when Nikola Tsolov, winner of the Sprint Race on Saturday, and Noel Leon, the Mexican of Van Amersfoort Racing, collided at the Mirabeau bend on lap 21. Sami Meguetounif, the only Frenchman in the race, was unable to pass and ended up against the safety rail, his car then being lifted by a crane.
The third race incident saw Dutchman Laurens van Hoepen, 3rd in Saturday’s Sprint, get into the rail on his own at Bureau de Tabac, just before the S de la Piscine, on lap 24, which caused the safety car to come out again.
The safety car returned to the pits just before the 27th and final lap, allowing Mini to cross the finish line at full speed and take full advantage of this second consecutive F3 victory on Monegasque soil.
This has only happened twice in the history of this very important race for a young driver: in 1961 and 1962, for Peter Arundell (Lotus), then in 1981 and 1982, for Michel Ferté (Martini).
Charles Leclerc really wanted this pole position for the 81stFormula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco. The Monegasque achieved it after a masterclass in qualifying, on Saturday, in his Ferrari. He will be the great favourite at 3pm on Sunday in this prestigious race that he has never yet won.
Since free practice on Friday, everything has been falling into place. Best time in the 2nd session, beating Max Verstappen’s sensational pole position of 2023, Charles continued his preparation work early on Saturday afternoon, again finishing at the top of the timesheet. But there was still room for doubt, as the Dutchman, a three-time reigning world champion, was only two-tenths off the Monegasque.
The qualifying session, which was eagerly awaited by an enthusiastic crowd, allowed Leclerc to build up his pace slowly but surely, while one elimination followed another. Starting with Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) and Sergio Pérez (Red Bull), who were ruthlessly ejected in Q1. There were still two Alpines in the race, but Esteban Ocon didn’t see Q3, while his compatriot Pierre Gasly, who set a sensational 5th fastest time in Q2, boosted the morale of the Franco-English team in one fell swoop. At that point, ten drivers were within half a second of each other, having all done better than Verstappen’s pole in 2023.
An amazing Q3
Q3 was sumptuous, as expected, with ten drivers at the top of their game, capable of going very fast without breaking anything. Leclerc set the first reference time of 1:10.418, ahead of Piastri, Verstappen and Sainz, before everyone returned to the pits for a mini-break, giving the spectators a chance to catch their breath.
Then came the grand finale, the last attempt, the final lap of an extraordinary session, concluded by the long-awaited pole of the local hero, in 1:10.270. Just one tenth off the absolute record set at Circuit de Monaco in 2019 by a Lewis Hamilton who was then on another planet (1:10.166), in a Mercedes team at the height of its domination of F1.
250th pole for Ferrari
For the scenario to be perfect, a round number was needed: it was the 250th pole position for a Ferrari in F1 since 1950, and it made Charles Leclerc the second most successful Ferrari driver in this very special qualifying exercise, with 24 pole positions in all. That’s one more than the legendary Niki Lauda for the Scuderia, and far fewer than the unrivalled Schumi (58 for Ferrari, out of a total of 68).
Behind two mixed front rows, Leclerc-Piastri and Sainz-Norris, at 3pm on Sunday, there will be a Mercedes (Russell) on the third row, alongside a Red Bull (Verstappen), and three surprise guests around Hamilton (7thfastest today): Yuki Tsunoda (8th) in his Racing Bull, Alex Albon (9th) in his Williams and Pierre Gasly (10th) in his Alpine. That’s seven teams out of ten represented at the top of the grid, so that all the fans can be happy. We cannot wait for Sunday!
19-year-old Briton Taylor Barnard (AIX Racing), who is making his F2 debut and had not yet managed to score a point in 2024, made the most of the reversed grid for the Sprint Race on Saturday, which was marked by several race incidents and interrupted by a red flag.
Thanks to his 10th place in qualifying, Norwich-born Barnard, winner of just one F3 race last year (10th in the F3 championship), was on pole position for the 30-lap Sprint. He got off to a very good start and never relinquished the lead, with Brazilian Gabriel Bortoleto (Invicta) and Norwegian Dennis Hauger (MP Motorsport) behind him all the way to the chequered flag.
The best lap was set by Italian prodigy Andrea ‘Kimi’ Antonelli (Prema Racing), who failed to finish on the podium but scored a few points, while Frenchman Victor Martins (ART GP) and Dutchman Richard Verschoor (Trident) were eliminated prematurely.
Martins didn’t even see the Beau Rivage climb, being sandwiched at the start by two of his rivals and thrown against the rail at Sainte-Dévote, where he opened up his front end. Spaniard Josep Maria Marti crashed out of the S de la Piscine on lap 6, causing the Safety Car to come out. And Verschoor, after a touch on lap 12, had to return to his pits, from where he left 22nd and last.
In the final incident, which was not serious for the drivers, championship leader Zane Maloney was caught out by the braking of Indonesian driver Kush Maini at the Rascasse bend, hit him from behind and spun, causing a small traffic jam and the red flags coming out. The race restarted at 3.13pm, for just 6 laps, and the Top 8 remained unchanged, despite Antonelli’s best efforts, with Frenchman Isack Hadjar (Campos Racing) in 8th place at the end.
Everything will return to normal on Sunday at 9.40am for the long race (42 laps), with the starting grid in the order determined by Friday’s qualifying. And two Frenchmen at the top of the grid, Martins (2nd) and Hadjar (3rd), determined to beat poleman Verschoor.
The battle of the chiefs will take place on Circuit de Monaco from 4 p.m. to see who will start from pole position on Sunday, at the 81st Formula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco. The 3rd free practice session saw Charles Leclerc, fastest in his Ferrari, confirm the very favourable impression already given on Friday. He will just have to be quicker than the last two world champions, Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton.
With a time of 1:11.369, the Monegasque, in search of a first podium finish in his homeland, did almost as well as he did in Friday’s 2nd session, just one tenth behind, and saw the inevitable Verstappen, who set the 2nd fastest time, just two tenths behind the Scuderia driver, come back into his rear-view mirror. This promises to be the case in qualifying, where a third driver, the veteran Hamilton (Mercedes), will be looking to get onto the front row, along with one or the other of his two young rivals.
Last year, in qualifying, the Red Bull driver took all the risks and set a time of 1:11.365 to take pole. This time has already been beaten on Friday by Leclerc, and there is no doubt that it will be beaten again later today. There could still be a surprise in store, as the top ten finishers in this 2nd session finished within 7 tenths of each other, between Leclerc and Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin), who set the 10th fastest time.
One thing is certain: the Ferraris have everything they need to continue their domination of the Monaco weekend, with perhaps a small margin of comfort over the Red Bulls, the Mercedes and the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, or even the Aston Martin of ‘Nando’, the two-time Spanish world champion.
Finally, one or two teams from the second half of the field could manage to qualify for Q3, the final act of “quali”, if the session is even more eventful than expected. In that case, we’ll have to keep an eye on Yuki Tsunoda’s Racing Bull, Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hülkenberg at Haas. After all, anything is always possible at Monaco, especially on Saturday…
The ART Grand Prix team, a benchmark in the categories for young drivers aspiring to F1, managed to place two of its three drivers on the podium in the Formula 3 Sprint Race at the 81st Formula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco: Bulgaria’s Nikola Tsolov won, ahead of Germany’s Tim Tramnitz (MP Motorsport) and Tsolov’s team-mate, Dutchman Laurens van Hoepen.
The French team’s third driver, Christian Mansell, was eliminated on the first lap when five cars piled up on the track near Casino de Monte-Carlo, causing the yellow and then red flags to come out. It took the Automobile Club de Monaco (ACM) marshals around twenty minutes to remove the cars and debris from the pile-up, before the race resumed.
There were still 22 laps to go, for 25 of the 30 cars entered this week, and Tsolov, 17, in his Alpine-badged single-seater, opened up a gap on Tramnitz. He then drove relatively quietly to a prestigious victory, 4 seconds ahead of the young German, the podium being completed by van Hoepen.
This Sprint Race was run on an inverted grid, for the top 12 drivers in qualifications. There was no miracle for the favourites in the long race on Sunday morning at 8.00am, and all the major players finished grouped between 7th and 11th place, including Swede Dino Beganovic and Briton Luke Browning, and above all Italians Leonardo Fornaroli and poleman Gabriele Mini. They will both start from the front row early Sunday morning.
The best Porsche Supercup driver of the 21st century, Larry ten Voorde (Schumacher CLRT), once again outclassed his rivals in qualifying on Friday. Twice crowned champion, in 2020 and 2021, he will start from pole position on Sunday at midday (17 laps), with his best enemy, Briton Harry King, at his side.
The British driver from Lechner Racing will be looking to repeat last year’s success, when he finally beat ten Voorde who had started from pole! The two great rivals were on another planet on Friday, and nobody was able to dislodge them from the top of the timesheets during 30 minutes of an intense, fierce session, which was briefly interrupted by a red flag, then ended prematurely by another red flag.
Ten Voorde set a time of 1:32.846, better than last year at the same time, in the same conditions, and King came within two tenths, with a time of 1:33.037 at the very end of the session, just before the final red flag. On the second row of the grid, there will be the surprising Keagan Masters (Ombra), a 21-year-old South African, and a Dutch rookie in the person of Kas Haverkort (Uniserver). Two surprises, but they didn’t steal their second place, given the very high standard of these qualifications which turned into a street fight.
On the French side, in addition to the pole position achieved by the Schumacher CLRT structure, originally set up by driver Côme Ledogar, there were other satisfying results, such as the 5th place on the grid achieved by Marvin Klein, ten Voorde’s team-mate in the French team. A product of the French Porsche Carrera Cup, Klein can aim for a podium finish on Sunday, behind the untouchable ten Voorde and King, who will be tough to overtake..
The tifosi can rest assured that they will sleep well tonight. The 2nd free practice session of the 81st Formula 1 Grand Prix de Monaco saw Charles Leclerc, fastest in his Ferrari, do better than three world champions: Lewis Hamilton, fastest in the 1st session, Fernando Alonso and Max Verstappen. That’s 12 world championship titles altogether!
Saturday’s qualifying session promises to be sumptuous. The top four drivers in this 2nd session, all grouped within half a second, still have their work cut out. They didn’t spend the whole session on soft tyres in order to set the best possible time, and they ended the session preparing for the race on medium or hard tyres. And one thing is certain: the suspense is going to be total on Saturday at 17:00.
With a time of 1:11.278, the Monegasque, who has never yet stood on the princely podium in his native country, did better than Max Verstappen last year in qualifying (1:11.365), when he took a sensational pole position by taking all the risks, and converted it into his second win in Monaco the following day.
That was the main lesson to be learned from Friday’s race: the Ferraris are ready, efficient and fast, and Charles can aim for pole on Saturday, but he’s not the only one. Lewis Hamilton, seven-time world champion and three-time winner in Monaco, showed once again, after his best time early in the afternoon in the 1st session, that he really is a force to be reckoned with this weekend.
Sir Lewis took 2nd place in this 2nd session, less than 2 tenths behind Leclerc, driving slightly faster than Alonso and Verstappen. The Mercedes is much more efficient on the streets of Monaco than on the very fast circuits at the start of the season, where it was unable to keep up with the infernal pace of the Red Bulls, McLarens and Ferraris. And McLaren remains in the hunt, thanks also to the talent of its young drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. They are both dreaming of springing a surprise on Sunday. Or perhaps in qualifying on Saturday? Wait and see…
Dutchman Richard Verschoor (Trident) will start from pole position for Sunday’s main Formula 2 race, the curtain-raiser to the 81st Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix. However, the two French drivers competing in F2 did not disappoint in qualifying on Friday: Victor Martins (ART Grand Prix) will be next to him on the front row, and Isack Hadjar (Campos Racing) just behind, on the second row.
Martins and Hadjar had shone in Thursday’s one and only free practice session run on wet tyres. It took just a few thousandths of a second (27 to be precise) for Verschoor to claim pole position, with a best lap of 1:21.283 in Group A. Slightly faster than the Frenchman who clocked a 1:21.310 in Group B, a few minutes later.
Martins will therefore have a great opportunity on Sunday to finally launch his 2024 season, having only managed to score 9 points in eight races. Behind him will be Estonian Paul Aron (HiTech) and Czech Roland Stanek (Trident). A little further back, Briton Oliver Bearman, who has already scored points in F1 (replacing Carlos Sainz at the last minute at Ferrari), will be less well placed, on the 6th row of the grid.
Hadjar, lying in ambush on the 2nd row of the grid, just behind Verschoor, will have to keep a close eye on his mirrors with, in order, Argentinian Franco Colapinto, Italian prodigy Andrea ‘Kimi’ Antonelli, backed by Mercedes F1, and two Brazilians, Gabriel Bortoleto and Enzo Fittipaldi, grandson of double World Champion Emerson, in the 7Os.
This grid is valid for Sunday morning (42 laps, 9.40am), but not for Saturday afternoon’s Sprint Race (30 laps or 45 minutes) where the grid will be reversed for the top ten qualifiers.
After eight races in 2024, the leader of the FIA Formula 2 Championship is Zane Maloney (Rodin Motorsport). He could do no better than 7th in Group B qualifying. He will therefore start from the 7th row of the grid on Sunday and will have to put in a great effort to finish on the podium.
The first free practice session of the 81st Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix saw seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton show that his Mercedes is definitely improving, while Max Verstappen had to make do with 11th place…
There are several good reasons for Formula 1 fans to keep a close eye on what’s going to happen until Sunday in the Principality, for the 8th round of the Formula 1 World Championship. The first is that Mercedes is improving, as demonstrated by Lewis Hamilton’s best time in the first free practice session early on Friday afternoon. In front of Sir Jackie Stewart, always happy to spend some time in the Principality at the end of May.
By switching to a set of soft tyres at the end of the session, Sir Lewis, a three-time winner of this Monaco GP and already on the podium seven times in 16 appearances, was able to complete his best lap in 1:12.169. Enough to finish at the very top of the timesheet, something he hadn’t done since the 2nd free practice session in Bahrain at the end of February, for the first round of the year. And seven months earlier in Hungary, during the 3rd free practice session.
As luck would have it, his young compatriot and team-mate George Russell completed the picture by taking 3rd place in this session, sandwiched between the two McLarens of Oscar Piastri (2nd, just 29 thousandths behind Hamilton) and Lando Norris, winner of the Miami GP last month. The session was interrupted for a few minutes by a red flag, just long enough for the ever-efficient ACM stewards to clear away the debris left by a touchdown by Chinese driver Guanyu Zhou (Kick Sauber).
The tifosi had everything to cheer about at the start of the session, when Charles Leclerc topped the timesheets on the giant screens in Monaco harbour, just ahead of Carlos Sainz. But the Ferraris finished the session less well, with the Monegasque in 5th place, just ahead of Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin), and the Spaniard in 10th, ahead of Max Verstappen (Red Bull). The Dutch star has a good excuse: he never used soft tires, choosing to prepare the race on Sunday by working on the setup of the RB20 with medium and hard tyres.
The big question this Friday is whether Max Verstappen, who showed himself to be a little worried on Thursday in the press conference, was hiding his game in anticipation of Saturday, or whether he was just being honest and lucid about the level of performance of his Red Bull on this very specific track. We’ll know more at 6pm on Friday, at the end of the second free practice session scheduled for this afternoon…
Italy’s Gabriele Mini (Prema Racing), last year’s winner in the Principality, will once again start from pole position to attempt the double at 8am on Sunday, in the main race of the FIA Formula 3 Championship, at the 81st Formula 1 Grand Prix of Monaco.
Mini, a member of the Alpine Drivers Academy, was already fastest in free practice on Thursday, but he had to wait until the very end of this session, in bright sunshine, to snatch pole position from Great Britain’s Luke Browning (HiTech): with a time of 1:23.942, Mini was the only driver to go under the one minute and 24 seconds mark on his last attempt, at an average speed of 143 km/h on the streets of the Principality.
Browning finished two tenths of a second behind Mini and he was just 65 thousandths ahead of another Italian, Leonardo Fornaroli (Trident), who leads the Championship after six races. The places of honour were taken by Spaniard Mari Boya (Campos Racing) in 4th place, and Mexican Noel Leon (Van Amersfoort Racing) in 5th. They will all start from the same side of the grid on Sunday morning, assigned to this qualifying Group A.
In the other group (B), the best time was set by Australian Christian Mansell, who has no known relation to Nigel, the Williams world champion. But as there is a one-second gap between Mini’s time and Mansell’s (1:24.921), the Italian driver will be on pole position on Sunday morning.
For Saturday’s Sprint race, the grid will be reversed for the top twelve drivers at the end of qualifications, both groups mixed. And young Frenchman Sami Meguetounif (Trident) will have a lot of work, starting in the middle of the grid for both races of the weekend. The winner at Imola last Sunday, he missed his qualifying session and even hit the rail at Sainte-Dévote, ending with 7th fastest time of Group B, the slowest of the two.
