‘Crazy end’ as Monaco qualifying ends in Charles Leclerc crash, Daniel Ricciardo 12th

Daniel Ricciardo’s horror return to Monaco has continued with the Aussie bundled out of qualifying in Q2, well behind his teammate Lando Norris.

But Ricciardo was far from the only one who struggled around the street circuit with pole sitter Charles Leclerc finishing qualifying early as he crashed with 18 seconds still remaining.

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Leclerc clipping one wall and slamming into another, sealing his own pole position.

It was as Max Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas were flying on their final laps and had to abandon them due to the red flag.

While Leclerc’s Ferrari is provisionally on pole, it was floated that Leclerc could have had gearbox damage from the size of the impact, which would cost him a five place penalty to replace.

Bottas said he was “gutted” by not getting his final lap in, while Verstappen was cutting an equally frustrated figure.

It leaves everything up in the air.

“What a crazy end to qualifying,” 2016 F1 World Champion Nico Rosberg said.

“Both Leclerc’s rivals, Verstappen and Bottas were on awesome laps there and might have passed him on pole.

“But Leclerc may have gearbox damage – so let’s see how this plays out for the grid tomorrow.”

It was a crazy qualifying session with Mercedes struggling as well with grip issues, as Lewis Hamilton could only qualify seventh.

Ricciardo’s horror weekend continues from 12th

The Aussie star has had a shocker of a weekend, with two 15th finishes in the first two practice sessions on Thursday before a 13th on Saturday’s practice session.

While arguably he did improve with the 11th place in Q1, he will start from the sixth row of the grid after qualifying in 12th for the Grand Prix.

Ricciardo has good memories of Monaco, winning the Grand Prix in 2018 in an epic performance where he held off Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton despite losing power early in the race.

But he also finished on the podium three other times.

At this stage, with the thin Monaco streets making it difficult to pass, it looks as though any hope of a sneaky podium may rely on other driver’s mistakes.

While the McLaren team didn’t expect much from the weekend, Lando Norris will start from fifth, a long way ahead of Ricciardo.

Sky Sports’ Martin Brundle said it was “extremely bad news” for Ricciardo.

David Croft added that it had “not looked good from the word go for Ricciardo this weekend”.

But Rosberg said it was hard to understand why the Aussie was struggling so much.

“It’s a really tough situation for Daniel because we know that he’s a phenomenal driver on this track and yet he’s struggled so much out there,” Rosberg, who had two poles and three wins in Monaco, said.

“For him, he says the laps do feel okay, he doesn’t really understand why he’s so far off, so that’s going to be a tough one to get back out of.”

Ricciardo was clearly frustrated, with his team engineer getting on team radio saying: “Well done mate I think we’ve made good progress through qualifying. I know it’s frustrating not to be through but you’ve made good progress.”

“Yep, understood,” Ricciardo said coldly. “Don’t have much, much of an answer at the moment. Thanks.”

In Q1, Ricciardo appeared to be on the cusp, about where he has been all weekend but he moved into Q2 in 11th, a long way back from teammate Lando Norris who was up in fourth.

While Ricciardo was looking for more, the bright side was that Fernando Alonso, who took his seat at Alpine, formerly Renault, was knocked out in Q1.

It’s the worst starting position for Alonso since he crashed in 2010 in P3 and missed qualifying.

2021 Monaco Grand Prix Grid

Row 1: Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) – Max Verstappen (Red Bull)

Row 2: Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes) – Carlos Sainz (Ferrari)

Row 3: Lando Norris (McLaren) – Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri)

Row 4: Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) – Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin)

Row 5: Sergio Perez (Red Bull) – Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo)

Row 6: Esteban Ocon (Alpine) – Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren)

Row 7: Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) – Kimi Raikkonen (Alfa Romeo)

Row 8: George Russell (Williams) – Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri)

Row 9: Fernando Alonso (Alpine) – Nicholas Latifi (Williams)

Row 10: Nikita Mazepin (Haas) – Mick Schumacher (Haas)