Leclerc grabs pole as Perez crash ends Q3 early

Leclerc had led his teammate Carlos Sainz ahead of the final laps in Q3, with his 1m11.376s the benchmark time for pole.

Perez looked to be Red Bull’s best hope for pole after topping FP3 and leading Max Verstappen throughout qualifying and he trailed Leclerc on the final fliers on the soft tyres, the second set for the top three runners in the final segment.

Leclerc set a purple sector in the opening third of his final effort – he ended up with the quickest time in all three based on his 1m11.376s lap – while the following Perez could not reproduce a personal best at that point.

While Leclerc was exiting the tunnel, Perez lost the rear of his Red Bull and smashed the right rear of his car against the barriers at the exit of Portier, after which Sainz also spun when he came around the right hander and found the wrecked Red Bull.

Sainz therefore struck the right front wheel of Perez’s car and was also stranded, with the red flags flying and preventing any late improvements or position changes as there was less than a minute of Q3 remaining and no chance of it being restarted.

That cemented Leclerc’s second Monaco pole in a row, with Sainz’s best time from the start of Q3 putting him 0.225s adrift, with Perez third thanks to his 1m11.629s.

Verstappen ran one set of softs throughout as he opted to continue chasing time to the flag, ending up fourth and unable to improve – he had just set a personal best in the first sector that was 0.1s down on Leclerc’s leading time there – because of his teammate’s incident.

Lando Norris slotted into fifth just before the leaders began their final laps, with George Russell sixth for Mercedes.

Alpine’s Fernando Alonso took seventh, but he too had a late crash, ending up in the barriers at Mirabeau at nearly the same time as Perez and Sainz were crashed further down the hill in sector two.

Lewis Hamilton ended up eighth, with Sebastian Vettel and Esteban Ocon rounding out the top 10.

Leclerc led the session’s middle…