Kimi Antonelli arrived in Monaco qualifying with the sort of calm that makes the rest of the paddock nervous. By the time the track was at its quickest and the usual Monte Carlo chaos was closing in, the Mercedes driver had done the one thing that matters most around here: he’d nailed the lap.
A 1:12.051 was enough to put Antonelli on pole for the Monaco Grand Prix, edging Max Verstappen by just 0.043s in a session that swung on tiny margins and ended with a very big moment for the local favourite. Lewis Hamilton will start third, with Charles Leclerc fourth after binning his Ferrari into the wall on his final attempt.
The story of Saturday wasn’t just that Antonelli was quick — plenty of people can be quick in a straight line. It was the way he managed the rhythm of the session and, crucially, the traffic and preparation phases that so often decide Monaco qualifying before the “real” lap even starts. While others were fuming at compromised build-ups, Antonelli kept putting himself in the right place at the right time. Even a black-and-white warning for failing to follow the race director’s instructions didn’t knock him off stride.
Q1 had the familiar feel of Monaco: a little messy, a little frantic, and always one bump away from a red flag. Ferrari looked every bit the threat suggested by practice, with Leclerc trading early blows at the top, and Verstappen initially mired down in the pack without a time after being caught in traffic. Hamilton’s radio lit up with irritation as he complained Leclerc was “backing into me”, and Isack Hadjar was equally unimpressed with his own run plan, calling his prep lap the “worst ever”.
Leclerc’s 1:13.293 with five minutes to go set the benchmark, with Verstappen second ahead of Antonelli and Lando Norris as the field tightened up. Then the inevitable happened: Gabriel Bortoleto clipped the barrier at the Nouvelle chicane, broke the front suspension and triggered the red flag that turned the final minutes into a pit-lane drag race.
When qualifying restarted with just over two minutes left, cars queued in a rush for one last chance. Liam Lawson’s session ended at the pit exit, Franco Colapinto didn’t even make the line in time to begin a flyer, and Bortoleto — despite scraping through in 15th — was done for the day after the damage. A handful of big names didn’t survive the first cut: Esteban Ocon, Sergio Perez, Oliver Bearman, Valtteri Bottas, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll all headed for an early shower.
Q2 was where the temperature rose. Verstappen and Carlos Sainz had a near-miss in the pit lane that left Sainz noted for an unsafe release and Verstappen in a mood, snapping on the radio: “Williams mechanic, what an idiot.” It was the kind of Monaco moment that can spiral — and on a weekend where track position is everything, it’s also the kind of thing teams remember.
On track, Antonelli initially looked in control again, firing in a 1:12.7 to lead Verstappen and Norris while Ferrari briefly sat on the back foot. Leclerc then found time to jump to second, 0.070s off the top, while Hamilton aborted a run and returned for fresh tyres and a front wing tweak — a small but telling admission that he wanted more bite from the car before the shootout.
Verstappen, as he so often does, waited late to drop the hammer. His 1:12.499 took him to P1, two tenths clear of Antonelli, with Hadjar a standout third as the session settled. Alex Albon, Sainz, Nico Hulkenberg, Colapinto, Arvid Lindblad and Bortoleto were the ones to miss out.
Then came Q3 — the bit Monaco sells itself on. The opening runs were about laying down markers and building confidence, with prep laps all over the place: Leclerc trundled through a 1:16.6, Norris a 1:18.3, before the first flyers began to stack up. Oscar Piastri briefly held the top spot, then Norris, then Hamilton — and then Antonelli, who punched in a 1:12.3 to underline that Mercedes hadn’t come here to play a supporting role.
Leclerc didn’t set an early flyer at all, peeling into the pits instead, and the stewarding notebook continued to fill: Hamilton was shown the black-and-white flag for not adhering to the race director’s note.
On the second runs, Leclerc finally lit the fuse, bolting on fresh softs and delivering a 1:12.3 to go P1, leaving himself time for another attempt — exactly the kind of positioning a Monaco specialist loves. But the order didn’t hold. Verstappen jumped ahead. Hamilton jumped ahead. And then Antonelli produced the lap that mattered, a 1:12.051 that took pole back with a tiny but decisive margin.
Leclerc had one more shot to answer — and, for a moment, it looked like it might be on. But at Tabac, the Ferrari snapped into oversteer and he hit the barrier hard enough to break the SF-26’s suspension, ending his session with a dull thud and guaranteeing Antonelli didn’t have to sweat a late reversal.
So the grid is set with Antonelli and Verstappen on the front row, Hamilton third and Leclerc left to wonder what might have been. Hadjar’s fifth place is a serious Monaco statement, George Russell is sixth, and the McLarens of Piastri and Norris will start seventh and eighth after never quite landing the knockout blow in Q3. Pierre Gasly and Lawson round out the top 10.
Around Monaco, pole is usually the closest thing Formula 1 has to a contract. Antonelli’s just signed his — now he has to cash it in on Sunday.
