World championship leader Jenson Button grabbed pole position yesterday for today’s Monaco Grand Prix with a perfectly timed hot lap in the final seconds of qualifying.
The 29-year-old Englishman delivered a best time of 1 minute, 14.902 seconds in his Brawn GP car to secure his fourth pole in six races this year and the seventh of his career.
He outpaced nearest rival Finn Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari by two-hundredths of a second in a dramatic conclusion to a keenly fought session.
PHOTO: AFP
Button’s Brazilian teammate Rubens Barrichello was third ahead of Germany’s Sebastian Vettel in a Red Bull and Brazilian Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari.
German Nico Rosberg was sixth for Williams and Finn Heikki Kovalainen seventh for McLaren Mercedes ahead of Australian Mark Webber, in the second Red Bull, Fernando Alonso of Renault and Japan’s Kazuki Nakajima in the second Williams.
There was further woe, meanwhile, for British reigning champion Lewis Hamilton of McLaren, who crashed out of qualifying in the first session.
The final showdown began with Vettel on top, before Rosberg delivered a 1 minute, 15.602 second lap and then Vettel replied, the leading cars all giving it their utmost on varying fuel loads going into the final minutes.
Earlier, the full session began in warm sunshine with an air temperature of 25ºC and a track temperature of 43ºC, warm enough to create some pressures for several teams, including Ferrari, Red Bull and BMW Sauber, where engines were changed on the cars to be run by Massa, Vettel and Kubica.
When the action started, Massa, seeming to be in a hot-headed mood, lost control of his car at the Swimming Pool complex, damaging the front end.
Vettel went top and then Kovalainen as the the Ferrari mechanics did their best to keep Massa calm while his car was repaired.
The Brawns then took over, Button going top followed quickly by Barrichello on his 37th birthday, before Hamilton slammed into the barriers at the Mirabeau, losing his rear end and triggering a red flag to halt the session and end his participation.
Hamilton was left to trudge back to the pits, his hopes virtually ruined as he was eliminated after the first mini-session along with German Nick Heidfeld and his BMW Sauber teammate Pole Robert Kubica. The two Toyotas driven by Italian Jarno Trulli and German Timo Glock were also eliminated.
“I just don’t know what I was thinking. I made a mistake. It’s a mistake and I made it. It’s a shame because the weekend had been going so well — I just want to apologise to the team for wasting their time, but at least Heikki is still there,” Hamilton said.
Rosberg was fastest for Williams ahead of Button and Webber.
A disgruntled Heidfeld said: “We have made so many changes this weekend, but no matter what we do, we are still miles away. It’s very disappointing. I think it will have to be a one-stop strategy now, but I have been here before in a slow car and it could be possible still to pick up points.”
The second session, qualifying 2, saw Button put himself briefly in peril, but survive and it was Raikkonen who emerged fastest ahead of fellow Finn Kovalainen.
The Toro Rossos of Swiss Sebastien Buemi and his French teammate Sebastien Bourdais both failed to make the top 10 shootout, along with Brazilian Nelson Piquet of Renault, Italian Giancarlo Fisichella and his Force India teammate Adrian Sutil.
Trulli, outraged at his early elimination, claimed that he had been blocked in qualifying 1 by Alonso.
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