It’s the most famous and challenging track on the calendar, the one which calls for maximum performance from both the car and the driver. Securing pole position here is more of a reward than anywhere else; locking out the front row is a synonym for sensational team work.
At Monaco today, Scuderia Ferrari did it. The last one-two for the team on the grid in the Principality dates back to 2008. A perfect lap crowned Kimi’s performance through the weekend so far, giving him his 17th pole position in Formula One.
Sebastian’s lap was only slightly less perfect, with a gap of just over 4 hundredths of a second to his team-mate at the finish line. "It’s great to be on pole position” said Kimi, “this is one of the races where it is probably most important to be at the front. Half of the job is done, but we still have a big challenge in front of us tomorrow. So far so good, I’m happy with the car. This is a very special place, it’s been a bit tricky to get everything working as we wanted, but in qualifying things fell into place: and very small things make a massive difference in the lap time here .
"We got it right, the team put me in a very good position every time; things were running smoothly and hopefully tomorrow we can get a great result with both cars. We have to make a good start and try to stay out of trouble. It’s quite a short run to the first corner, cars are wide and it’s tricky to pass. We’ll try to do our best, but it’s not going to be easy, as many things can happen out of your control.
"The most important thing for me is to be in the same position tomorrow when it comes to the end”.
As for Sebastian, he’s not making any excuses for missing out on pole today:
"I am not happy with myself because pole position was up for grabs, but it’s great for the team. If I had to give up pole position and hand it to someone, I would choose Kimi. I am happy for him. He did a very good job in qualifying. As I said, it’s been fantastic for the team, but I am not totally happy with my performance today. I should have done a better job overall. The car was good, so it was my mistake. I was a bit too greedy in my last run. Now it is impossible to make predictions for tomorrow, all we have to think about is the start, the pace, the strategy, and then try to put everything together. So, we are going to prepare for the race as usual”.
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