Clos clinches Monaco pole

A happy Dani Clos

Dani Clos overcame his rivals and the treacherous conditions in today’s qualifying session in Monaco to claim pole for tomorrow’s feature race in a last minute shoot out, ahead of Sergio Perez and this morning’s fastest man Pastor Maldonado.

In a session which went from wet to extremely wet and back to merely wet again, the Spaniard kept his nerve as everything hinged on the very last lap: with everyone improving their times on the drying circuit Clos claimed a best lap of 1:37.572 to take pole by just 0.033 of a second.

When conditions worsening just at the start of the session it was clear that we were in for a dramatic session, and with many of their rivals struggling to stay on track the fight for the top spot was a three way shoot out between Maldonado, Perez and Clos, with all three claiming provisional pole at various times only to be denied by one of the others.

Nobody else was able to get close to the trio, with the run off areas at St Devote and at the bottom of the hill from Casino Square hosting peak hour traffic as the rest struggled to get on terms. With a minute to go it looked like Maldonado, who had set much of the running, had done enough when he put himself into P1, but he clouted the wall hard at the next turn, giving Perez and Clos the opportunity to get the one more run that counts.

And on that last lap the timesheets were ticking over just below the top three, with P4 changing almost every time someone crossed the line: in the end it was Alberto Valerio who sits on row two tomorrow, just ahead of Fabio Leimer, Jules Bianchi, Davide Valsecchi (who had a slow motion crash with Maldonado’s stricken vehicle straight after) and Jerome d’Ambrosio for tomorrow’s feature event.

Results

POS

NO DRIVER NAT ENTRANT TIME LAPS GAP INT
1 7 D. Clos ESP Racing Eng. 1:37.572 15
2 4 S. Perez MEX Barwa Addax 1:37.605 17 0.033
3 15 P. Maldonado VEN Rapax 1:38.512 17 0.940 0.907
4 20 A. Valerio BRA Scuderia Coloni 1:38.901 16 1.329 0.389
5 19 F. Leimer SUI Ocean Racing 1:39.072 14 1.500 0.171
6 1 J. Bianchi NED Barwa Addax 1:39.146 17 1.574 0.074
7 10 D. Valsecchi ITA iSport Int. 1:39.255 16 1.683 0.109
8 11 J. D'Ambrosio BEL Dams 1:39.363 16 1.791 0.108
9 8 C. Vietoris GER Racing Eng. 1:39.413 15 1.841 0.050
10 14 L. Razia BRA Rapax 1:39.544 18 1.972 0.131
11 2 S. Bird GBR ART GP 1:39.638 18 2.066 0.094
12 3 G. Van Der Garde NED Barwa Addax 1:39.812 17 2.240 0.174
13 6 M. Ericsson SWE Super Nova 1:39.826 18 2.254 0.014
14 12 H. Tung CHN Dams 1:39.926 18 2.354 0.100
15 25 A. Zaugg RSA Trident Racing 1:40.237 18 2.665 0.311
16 18 M. Chilton GBR Ocean Racing 1:40.495 17 2.923 0.258
17 27 G. Ricci ITA DPR 1:40.520 16 2.948 0.025
18 16 C. Pic FRA Arden Int. 1:40.767 17 3.195 0.247
19 17 R. Gonzalez VEN Arden Int. 1:40.881 16 3.309 0.114
20 5 J. Kral CZE Super Nova 1:40.973 15 3.401 0.092
21 21 V. Arabadzhiev BUL Scuderia Coloni 1:41.733 18 4.161 0.760
22 26 M. Herck ROU Dams 1:42.039 16 4.467 0.306
23 24 J. Cecotto VEN Trident Racing 1:43.090 13 5.518 1.051
24 9 O. Turvey GBR iSport Int. 1:43.595 13 6.023 0.505