MONACO: Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc snatched pole position at his home Monaco Grand Prix on Saturday, as championship leader Max Verstappen could only finish sixth fastest.
The 26-year-old Monegasque driver, who has never managed a podium finish at his home race, clocked a best lap of one minute and 10.270 seconds to outpace Australian Oscar Piastri of McLaren by 0.154 seconds.
It brought Leclerc his third Monaco pole position and ended Verstappen’s run of seven straight poles this year and a record-equalling eight in succession, shared with three-time champion Ayrton Senna.
Three-time world champion Verstappen struggled for Red Bull after hitting the barriers on his final fast lap.
“It was so nice,” said a relieved Leclerc after a tense and thrilling qualifying.
“I’m really happy about my lap. The excitement was so high, but I know from the past that qualifying is not everything. The win is the target.”
Leclerc’s Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz was third ahead of Lando Norris in the second McLaren, Mercedes’ George Russell and Verstappen.
“It was close,” said Piastri. “If you took the second half of my first lap and the first half of my second one it would have been enough for pole!“
Sainz added: “I’ve struggled all weekend with confidence in the car so it’s an improvement. I just wish I was fighting for pole.”
Seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton was seventh in the second Mercedes ahead of RB’s Yuki Tsunoda, Alex Albon of Williams and Pierre Gasly of Alpine.
In near-perfect Riviera conditions with sunshine and temperatures of 48 degrees celsius on the track and 21 in the air, Hamilton led Russell and the rest out of the pits.
As the Mercedes ran two preparatory laps, it was Tsunoda on top for RB before Hamilton took command only for the rapidly-tumbling times to deliver Verstappen, Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg on top, the two Haas drivers retaining their positions until Russell took over.
Leclerc, disappointed by Ferrari’s decision to delay his entry, was 13th before he recorded a fast lap to go top in 1:11.653, a tenth clear of Magnussen and Hulkenberg.
In a fiercely-contested session, Hamilton jumped to second, but Perez was 14th and Norris 18th with only a minute remaining before, in a frantic finish to Q1, the Briton climbed to safety, but Perez was out along with Alonso.
The Mexican was 18th making an early exit for the second year running along with the two-time champion, in his Aston Martin, Williams’ Logan Sargeant, Valtteri Bottas and his Sauber team-mate Zhou Guanyu.
“We’ve struggled all the way through,” said Perez. “It is so tight, the margins I thought I could make the top five.”
Norris was first out for Q2, but Sainz swiftly went quickest ahead of Verstappen in another tight tussle with barely a second separating the top 14 and the Alpines suddenly flying, Gasly claiming a place in Q3 in fifth. “Let’s go, let’s go!” he cried.
Piastri, looking confident, then clocked a 1:10.756 only to be beaten by team-mate Norris as the McLarens took control ahead of Leclerc and Russell before another busy finale saw Esteban Ocon of Alpine, Hulkenberg, Daniel Ricciardo of RB, Lance Stroll in the second Aston Martin and Magnussen eliminated.
Sainz was first out for the top ten shootout, followed by Hamilton who clocked 1:10.975, an impressive lap that was blown away immediately by Leclerc in 1:10.418, a lap nine-tenths faster than Verstappen’s pole time last year.
The Dutchman’s first timed lap left him third after losing time in the final sector. “Still the same issues in Turns Five and Ten,” he reported.
As conditions continued to improve, Sainz and Verstappen chose to run again on a traffic-free lap, the rest following.
Hamilton improved to take fourth, but Russell beat him and then Verstappen glanced a barrier before Leclerc improved to 1:10.418 to take a dramatic pole ahead of Piastri, the Italian team’s 250th pole position in Formula One.
Leclerc claims Monaco pole to end Verstappen’s record sequence
https://arab.news/vgn35
Leclerc claims Monaco pole to end Verstappen’s record sequence
- It brought Leclerc his third Monaco pole position and ended Verstappen’s run of seven straight poles this year
- Three-time world champion Verstappen struggled for Red Bull after hitting the barriers on his final fast lap
Emirati driver Rashid Al-Dhaheri: Racing has always been my home
- Mercedes junior driver eyes further success in Formula Regional European Championship
ABU DHABI: It has been 14 years since a three-year-old Rashid Al-Dhaheri stood outside a Ferrari garage during the Abu Dhabi Formula 1 Grand Prix, captivated by the cars inside and all the engineers buzzing around it.
“I was on the pit lane walk. I stopped in front of the garage, watched the cars for as long as I could,” the Emirati driver told Arab News.
“Then the mechanics saw me, so they brought me in a little bit closer, and then again a bit closer. My parents were a little bit outside and I was this small kid being able to go in.
“It was just such a great experience. And then the moment I saw the car up close, met the drivers, I came out, I went to my parents and said, ‘This is what I want to do.’”
He has not looked back since.
Now 17 and on the heels of his first season competing in Formula Regional, Al-Dhaheri was back at Yas Marina Circuit, to witness Sunday’s F1 title showdown between Lando Norris, Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri.
“For me, it’s just absolutely spectacular because the weekend, OK, you could assume who might win the championship, you have three options, but the beauty of the sport is you don’t really know what’s going to happen,” Al-Dhaheri said.
“There's always a human error that could happen. There’s so many variables and it’s just absolutely amazing. In this case, I’m here as a fan, someone that’s looking up to these drivers and seeing what they can do and how they manage such pressure.”
Al-Dhaheri knows a thing or two about managing pressure on a racetrack.
From the moment he told his parents he wanted to be a racing driver, his father, Ali, went online to research how he could make that happen. Al-Dhaheri found himself in a go-kart at four years of age at Al-Ain Raceway and has steadily progressed through different racing categories ever since.
This year, he joined Mercedes’ junior team and stepped up to Formula Regional.
He scored three podiums to clinch P6 in Formula Regional Middle East with Mumbai Falcons Racing and secured P8 among 39 drivers in the Formula Regional European Championship, in which he claimed three podiums and a pole position with Prema Racing.
This weekend at Yas Marina Circuit, the Yas Heat Racing ambassador was spotted having a chat with Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team principal Toto Wolff, who made sure to catch up with the junior driver at the paddock of his home track.
Al-Dhaheri met Wolff for the first time when he was barely four years old at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and the Mercedes boss has kept an eye on him since.
“I was able to meet up with him yesterday, talk (about) how the season went, about the progression, and, of course, also I was able to talk about his point of view of their season, and I think they did actually a really good job,” said Al-Dhaheri, who is grateful for the guidance and support he receives from Mercedes both on and off the track.
This year, the Emirati teenager made the podium in his first race of the Formula Regional European Championship, at the Misano World Circuit in Italy, and secured his maiden pole position at the next stop in Spa.
“I’m a very competitive person, so every time I go on track, I want to do the absolute best possible and get the absolute best result,” Al-Dhaheri said.
“I think during the winter test and during the winter season when I was getting to know the car, I think we saw that there was really good potential. And then once we went on track for the first race, we got immediately a podium. And that was very nice because you could see all the work transformed into a result.
“And, yeah, it was a really amazing experience. And then I just said, ‘OK, you’re here now. Let’s keep going forward.’ I think that’s very important to know. I think in this sport, if you don’t make steps forward, you’re going backwards.”
Being part of Formula Regional allowed Al-Dhaheri to drive on new tracks he had always dreamed of competing at and while no official announcement has been made about who he will be racing for next season, he plans to do another season in that category in 2026.
“There’s going to be a brand-new car. It’s going to be very exciting because we receive the car two days before the actual race event. So there’s going to be a lot of learning to do in very little time,” he said.
“I think that’s a great experience because Formula 1 is very similar every year, they build up the cars and then they have a couple of test days and then they go on track. So it’s going to be very interesting as a driver to explore the car from zero and as well with the team. And, yeah, it’s going to be a very, very interesting season.”
The average age of the F1 grid has been falling in recent years, with lots of young blood coming in and given seats alongside the veterans of the sport.
One of those is Italian Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who made his F1 debut this season for Mercedes when he was just 18 years old.
Al-Dhaheri and Antonelli go way back, and the latter has offered the former a fair share of valuable advice.
“It’s pretty encouraging, because I knew him from when we were kids. Of course, he was always a higher category compared to me, because I was younger, but also with the parents, we know them quite well, so it’s nice because you can see what he did, and the journey that he took, you can see how he developed as a driver, as a person inside and outside the track, and it’s very motivating,” Al-Dhaheri said.
He knows he has to bide his time though as he aspires to one day become an F1 driver.
“I think, of course, you need to have quite a bit of patience, but I think it’s also important to understand and focus on yourself, to focus on your own journey,” he added.
Al-Dhaheri has had a unique journey, not just because of how young he started in motor racing. He travelled the world with his family from a young age (his father is currently the UAE’s ambassador to Greece), speaks four languages (Arabic, English, German and Italian), and during COVID, he spent two years separated from his family, who were living in China at the time, while he was in Europe racing.
From the moment he fell in love with the sport, he never for a second wanted to be anywhere else.
“For me, racing was home. And every time I was out of the racing world, I felt something was missing from me,” he says.
“So for me, just being part of racing in these environments, hearing the engines, (smelling) the fuel, seeing the tires, that’s just where I was basically growing up. Basically, that’s my home. And I’ve been always traveling with that environment. So for me, I always say your home, of course, is the UAE. But for me, it’s also the racetrack, wherever it goes.”
Al-Dhaheri believes he has many attributes that make him good at what he does, most importantly “being adaptive” and always wanting to be “the hardest-working driver” around.
“Always putting the most effort and doing it the smartest way because it’s not just hard work, it’s also smart hard work that makes a big difference,” he said.
He feels 2025 was a successful year for him and is pleased with where he is. While he acknowledges he could have had better results — “I always want to do the best and be the best” — he is excited about next season, and the fact that there is lots of room for growth.
“It’s important to see where you are. I think there’s one key element that I want to really work on and to develop next year and I think if I’m able to really put all that together, I feel like I would be in a really good place as a driver,” he said.
“Of course, there’s always more to learn, both technically, physically, mentally, but I think that’s a really key point for my growth and for my journey as a driver and I can’t wait. I think that’s the main focus for next year.”
