The huge leap forward Aston Martin has made with its performance this year was almost enough for them to take pole position for the Monaco Grand Prix.
But three other teams are lapping slower than they did around the principality 12 months ago, including the one which locked out the front row of the grid in 2022.Last year’s pole-winner Charles Leclerc again produced Ferrari’s quickest time in qualifying on his home track. But his lap of 1’11.471 was 0.095 seconds slower than he managed last year. It left him third on the grid, before a penalty for impeding Lando Norris dropped him even further back.
“I’ve been struggling with the car like crazy,” Leclerc admitted after qualifying. “We’ve had a lot of problems with bottoming, especially over the hill to turn three and turn 13 also.
He was so satisfied with his lap time that despite missing pole position by only 0.106 seconds he doesn’t believe he could have beaten Max Verstappen’s time. “I don’t think so because looking back at the lap in Q3, honestly, the lap was really good,” he said. “So I don’t think there was much more.”
Leclerc said it’s clear the Ferrari is coping less well with the bumpy Monaco track than it did last year. “If we look at the on-boards of the different cars, check my head and it’s crazy. It’s going from left to right, especially on top of the hill, turn three and turn 13. It’s very, very tricky.
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“Last year it was much better and much easier to see the road. The car would absorb much more the bumps and that was much easier to be consistent. So that is the biggest difference.”
Two other teams have taken a bigger step backwards than Ferrari. Haas, who were surprised to see both cars drop out in Q1, were the slowest team of all. McLaren did get one car into Q3, but were four-tenths of a second slower than they managed last year.
Teams’ performance
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Field performance
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Jere (@jerejj)
28th May 2023, 12:12
Only 0.011 sec between this season’s & last season’s pole times.
Dan G (@dang)
29th May 2023, 13:27
Well done Williams!