F1 Today | Norris takes record-breaking pole and Hamilton receives penalty in Monaco GP qualifying

23:01, 24 May

byToby Nixon

Saturday at the Monaco Grand Prix weekend has concluded. Lando Norris secured a record-breaking pole position from home hero Charles Leclerc. Lewis Hamilton has dropped three places after impeding Max Verstappen in the first part of the session. The Dutchman defended his former rival afterwards, stating that it wasn't his fault. Catch up with the headlines from Saturday right here!

Norris takes record-breaking pole

Lando Norris took pole in qualifying in Monaco with a 1:09.954 and will start first on Sunday. Charles Leclerc finished in second place, while Oscar Piastri rounded off the Top three in the Principality.

Norris led marginally ahead of Piastri after the first runs, and both improved further on their second flying laps as well, with only 0.015 seconds separating the two teammates at that point. Leclerc then took the lead briefly, but Norris did a third lap and re-claimed pole position. Lewis Hamilton finished in P4 after his crash in FP3 but was dropped to seventh after his penalty. Max Verstappen couldn't improve on his second lap, so he finished in fifth position (now fourth) ahead of Isack Hadjar and Fernando Alonso.

Hamilton impedes Verstappen and receives a costly penalty

Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen had to appear in front of the stewards in Monaco, because of a case of a possible impeding. The stewards have since decided that the Ferrari driver impeded the Dutchman and will face a grid drop of three places for Sunday's Grand Prix.

In Q1, Lewis Hamilton impeded Max Verstappen in the Massenet corner. Over the team radio, the Briton's race engineer, Riccardo Adami told his driver that the Dutchman was slowing down, but that turned out not to be the case. After the session, the seven-time world champion also apologised to Verstappen. In the end, the incident did not influence the results, as both drivers made it through to Q2. Eventually, Hamilton finished in fourth position, a single position ahead of the defending world champion.

Verstappen backs Hamilton amid penalty drama

Verstappen explained to GPblog and other media present that Hamilton cannot be blamed for what happened in Q1. "Well at the time of course I was like what what is going on here, it was quite clear that there was a car in my way, but basically the team just told Lewis that I was suddenly driving slow. So then of course Lewis accelerates which is I think normal because he thinks that I'm on a slow lap, but I'm clearly not on a slow lap." To see the full article, click here.