Mercedes duo in Monaco rowposted in F124 | 05 | 2014
MERCEDES DUO Nico Rosberg an Lewis Hamilton (pictured) will start from the front row of the Monaco Grand Prix: but the team-mate were embroiled in controversy at the end of the thrilling session.
Rosberg had posted a time of 1min 15.989secs on his opening run in the final qualifying session, a slender 0.059secs quicker than Hamilton, winner of the last four grands prix.
As the clock ticked down towards the end of the session, the German edged his Mercedes out on to the track to begin his final run just seconds ahead of the world championship leader.
But strangely, Rosberg then rather over-dramatically to many onlookers, locked up at Mirabeau and slid down the escape road forcing yellow flags to be waved to those cars following behind and forcing them to lift-off. One of those cars, of course, was Hamilton.
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The Englishman had been marginally ahead of Rosberg up until that point of the lap, but the yellow flags wrecked any hopes Hamilton had from gaining the crucial pole position on the street circuit where overtaking is near impossible.
As the accusations of a 'deliberate action by Rosberg' grew in the paddock, the stewards quickly announced they would carry out their own investigation.
Hours later, they deemed Rosberg did nothing wrong in his incident at the end of qualifying. Hamilton though was irate, making no attempt to hide his belief that his team-mate had committed the act on purpose.
"I should have known that was going to happen," Hamilton stated, and replied "potentially" when asked if Rosberg had tried to spoil his pole shot.
Asked if he needed to sort out the issue with Rosberg, Hamilton compared their situation to Senna and Prost's explosive rivalry when McLaren team-mates.
"I don't know if Senna and Prost talked about it but I quite liked the way Senna dealt with that so I'll take a page out of his book," Hamilton replied.
F1 Monaco Grand Prix — Qualifying (Official):
1. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m15.989s
2. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m16.048s +0.059s
3. Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1m16.384s +0.395s
4. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m16.547s +0.558s
5. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m16.686s +0.697s
6. Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m17.389s +1.400s
7. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Renault 1m17.540s +1.551s
8. Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 1m17.555s +1.566s
9. Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso-Renault 1m18.090s +2.101s
10. Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1m18.327s +2.338s
11. Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1m17.846s +1.492s
12. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m17.988s +1.634s
13. Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 1m18.082s +1.728s
14. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1m18.196s +1.842s
15. Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault 1m18.356s +2.002s
16. Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes
17. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 1m18.741s +1.184s
18. Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari 1m18.745s +1.188s
19. Jules Bianchi Marussia-Ferrari 1m19.332s +1.775s
20. Max Chilton Marussia-Ferrari 1m19.928s +2.371s
21. Kamui Kobayashi Caterham-Renault 1m20.133s +2.576s
22. Marcus Ericsson Caterham-Renault 1m21.732s +4.175s
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Jim McGill