Winners and losers from the 2025 Monaco Grand Prix qualifying

Lando Norris nabbed a strong pole position at the Monaco Grand Prix, while Kimi Antonelli ended his session in the wall.

These are our winners and losers for the 2025 Monaco Grand Prix qualifying session.

Winners and losers from the 2025 Monaco Grand Prix qualifying

Winner: Lando Norris

It was pole position and a new track record for Lando Norris, who snatched the first-place starting slot from hometown hero Charles Leclerc thanks to a monstrous 1:09.954 lap.

It’s Norris’ first pole since Australia — a race that also happened to be his most recent win.

Norris was able to take an early championship lead with his Australian performance, but so far, he’s been unable to replicate it. Instead, his teammate Oscar Piastri has scooped up four wins in the last six races to secure the lead in the drivers’ standings.

Speaking in the post-qualifying press conference, Norris admitted that he’s been struggling with consistency this season — that he has flashes of pace, particularly in qualifying, but that he can’t quite string them together.

His pole at Monaco will make for a strong start to the series’ most prestigious race.

Loser: Mercedes

Mercedes drivers George Russell and Kimi Antonelli will be lining up 14th and 15th on the grid for the Monaco Grand Prix despite Russell’s claims that they were quick enough to have started 10 slots up on the grid.

That’s because both drivers suffered two totally unrelated issues almost back to back.

At the tail end of Q1, Kimi Antonelli lost control of his W16 while turning into the Nouvelle Chicane. He tagged the barrier with the left-front tyre, which sent him skating into a different barrier. Unable to start Q2, Antonelli inherited the final slot of the session.

But just as Q2 was getting underway, George Russell’s W16 completely lost power after driving over a bump exiting Sainte Devote. He was able to continue on into the tunnel, where the car completely died. With no time on the board, he was relegated to a 14th-place starting slot.

“It’s obviously a shame because we were kind of coming back with the pace,” Antonelli said after the session, referring to the fact that Mercedes had started off the weekend on the back foot but had improved coming into qualifying.

Winner: Racing Bulls

Both Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson made it through to Q3 in a frankly impressive display from the Racing Bulls teammates.

Hadjar finished the session in sixth, though he’s been promoted to a fifth-place start after a penalty for Lewis Hamilton. Meanwhile, Lawson will start from ninth on the grid.

Those are career-best qualifying results for both drivers, which is extremely impressive at a tight track like Monaco.

Lawson is one of the five drivers in the F1 2025 season to have yet to score a point — but he’s set himself up well for a good finish tomorrow.

Loser: Charles Leclerc

In any other race, second on the grid would have been a win for the Ferrari team and for Charles Leclerc — but not this weekend.

The Monegasque driver was hoping to once again start his home race from pole position and, if possible, to recreate 2024’s lights-to-flag victory. But at the very last second in qualifying, Norris snatched the first-placed starting position.

“No!” he screamed over the radio after being told he’d taken second. “F**k! F**k that s**t!”

He then proceeded to curse out the traffic that he felt had compromised his fast lap.

The SF-25 has been a difficult car to handle this year, and that front-row starting slot should be an overwhelming win — but not here in Monaco, not for Leclerc.

Get up to speed ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix:

? Monaco Grand Prix 2025: What time does the race start on Sunday?

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Winner: Esteban Ocon

Haas driver Esteban Ocon was jubilant when he crossed the line in Q3 to discover that he would be lining up for the Monaco Grand Prix in eighth place.

Ocon hasn’t had the easiest time after making the swap to Haas, and in practice for this race, he was consistently mired in the very back of the field.

“We didn’t have the best session all the way until now, but we really squeezed everything in in that session,” Ocon said in a video posted by the Haas F1 team after qualifying.

“Thank you to the team for the trust and for keeping on trying things all the way into that Q2 where we really turned the car, I would say, a little bit around.”

Loser: Yuki Tsunoda

It’s no secret that the second Red Bull Racing seat is one of the most challenging on the Formula 1 grid. The team is largely organised around four-time World Champion Max Verstappen, leaving the other driver adapting to the contours of an already well-formed team.

Everyone who has sat beside Verstappen has struggled — but Yuki Tsunoda, at the very least, would have been hoping for a better starting position than 12th.

“I know what’s happened, and I don’t have to talk here,” a dejected Tsunoda said after the session.

“I’ll try my best to score points,” he said of Sunday’s race. “Monaco is always difficult.”

Tsunoda is right; starting position is critical at an event like Monaco, where overtaking on the track itself is difficult.

He’ll be hoping that the mandated two pit stop strategy will help his Red Bull team make some magic.

Winner: Fernando Alonso

Finishing Q3 in seventh before being promoted to sixth after a penalty for Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso had a stunning qualifying session in Monaco.

Beyond that, the Spaniard seemed to have an absolute blast behind the wheel.

“Hahaha, I love driving! I love driving in this place!” he enthused over the radio during the fast-paced session.

This year, five of the 21 drivers who have started a Grand Prix have failed to score points, and nestled amongst a pointless field of rookies is none other than Alonso. He ended the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix fuming about being the “unluckiest driver in the world.” Now, in Monaco, his tune has changed.

Making it to Q3 is a win in and of itself for Alonso and further, being able to start on the third row is seemingly unthinkable — and it sets him up well to score his first points of 2025.

Loser: Williams

The Williams drivers both looked to have impressive, front-of-the-grid-worthy pace in the early stages of qualifying in Monaco… only for it to fizzle out when it was most needed.

Carlos Sainz has started sixth for the last three Grands Prix, but in Monte Carlo, he found himself knocked out of the running in Q2, set to finish 11th. His teammate Alex Albon did make it through the Q3 but could only set a time good enough for 10th.

The problem? Williams gambled on medium tyres for both drivers in Q2; Sainz found that tyre slower than the softs, and even though he swapped back to the C6 compound for his final flying lap, it wasn’t good enough.

Both Albon and Sainz admitted that they were confused about Williams’ qualifying strategy, as well as by their own pace.

“I think my Q2 lap was half a second quicker than my Q3 lap, so that’s never good news. And we need to understand why,” Albon said.

Sainz, too, said he didn’t understand how Albon could do a “mega lap in Q2” but be “nowhere” in Q3.

While 10th and 11th isn’t the worst Williams could do, the two drivers clearly felt there was more in the tank — and in Monaco, a better qualifying position would have more readily set them up for a great points-paying finish.

Read next: Monaco GP: Norris breaks Ferrari hearts with pole as Mercedes suffer double disappointment