Lewis Hamilton produced a brilliant final lap to beat Valtteri Bottas and claim pole for the Monaco Grand Prix.
Seemingly a step behind his Mercedes teammate all session, the world champion picked it up with a new track record of 1m10.116s to finish almost a tenth clear of the Finn.
Max Verstappen secured third for Red Bull, ahead of Sebastian Vettel as Ferrari again shot themselves in the foot with Charles Leclerc dropping out in Q1.
Pierre Gasly took fifth ahead of Kevin Magnussen, as the Dane also left it late to finish ‘best of the rest’ in sixth.
Last year’s polesitter Daniel Ricciardo took seventh for Renault and Toro Rosso got both cars into the top 10 with Daniil Kvyat eighth and teammate Alex Albon 10th.
Between them, Carlos Sainz continued his record of making Q3 in every year in Monte Carlo and starts ninth for McLaren.
In the frenetic battle to reach Q3, Nico Hulkenberg would just miss out in P11 ahead of Lando Norris in a solid 12th for McLaren for his first Monaco GP.
Romain Grosjean was blocked by a Red Bull on his final attempt and missed out in 13th as the two Alfa Romeo’s slumped after showing strong pace in practice to 14th and 15th place.
Q1 was all about drama at Ferrari as Vettel, following his crash in final practice, needed a last gasp effort to make Q2 which he would achieve.
His lap though came at the expense of teammate Charles Leclerc as the team misjudged the cut-off time and left the local favourite 16th on the grid.
Behind the Monegasque, Racing Point’s miserable weekend continued with Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll only 17th and 18th.
At the back, Williams continues to lag behind with George Russell 0.6s behind Stroll in 19th and 0.3s clear of teammate Robert Kubica.
Full results from qualifying can be seen below:
