Michael Schumacher sets the fastest lap in Monaco

Home » F1 Blog » May 26 2012 at 23:01 | posted by Sadhbh O'Shea | Comment with facebook

Schumacher back to his best?

Michael Schumacher sets the fastest time in Monaco, but Mark Webber will be the one to start from the front of the grid on Sunday.

Schumacher hasn’t taken a pole position since his return to F1 and he’ll have to surrender this one with a five-place grid drop. The German was handed the penalty after the Spanish grand prix for hitting the back of Bruno Senna.

Webber is the man who benefits from Schumacher’s penalty by qualifying eight tenths behind him. His team-mate Sebastian Vettel didn’t run in the final session as he’d used up his quota of soft tyres. The reigning world champion was on the edge of the cut off zone in both the first and second sessions, so was forced to use more soft than he would have liked. Lewis Hamilton also gets a helping hand from the penalty as he moves into third.

After so much hype before qualifying both Lotus failed to impress with Romain Grosjean in fifth and Raikkonen setting the eighth fastest time. Felipe Massa will have something to cheer about after he made it into the final session for the first time this year. He may have been beaten into sixth by a tenth of a second, but it is the closest he’s been to Fernando Alonso in a long time.

Jenson Button was the biggest surprise in the second session, after he struggled to find the pace of the leaders. Button set the fastest time in the second free practice time on Thursday, but he struggled to get his McLaren up to speed. He will start in 13^th just behind on the same row of the grid as Kamui Kobayashi.

Sergio Perez was the first out of qualifying, at a circuit that doesn’t seem to bring him much luck. The Mexican looked to have steering problems while going through the swimming pool and hit the barriers on the opposite side of the wall. The session was briefly stopped as his car, and a wheel which escaped, was removed from the track.

Posted by Sadhbh O'Shea - Follow her on twitter @SadhbhOS.

Comment with facebook

Other comments

#1 MartyP | 27 May 2012, 06:54 Reply »

There's a fascinating debate around Schumacher's “pole position” and if it counts towards his statistics. My own belief is that it should because the penalty doesn't apply to his qualifying performance, but his race position (whereas Hamilton's penalty in Spain applied to qualifying). Does that make sense? I guess it's up to the FIA to define “pole position”.

#2 Jimmy@enterF1 | 27 May 2012, 23:44 Reply »

Hmm it is an interesting point. I totally get that Hamilton can't ever claim that pole position in his history, as he (his team) did not comply with the rules of the sport to gain it. Schumacher did - so you are right, it should be looked as he was the fastest guy, on the day, within the rules that decide it...