{"id":719866,"date":"2026-06-06T22:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T22:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/719866\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T22:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T22:44:11","slug":"f1-news-2026-kimi-antonelli-pole-qualifying-mercedes-george-russell-struggles-monaco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/719866\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 News 2026: Kimi Antonelli pole qualifying Mercedes George Russell Struggles Monaco"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kimi Antonelli<\/a> mastered one of Formula 1\u2019s<\/a> most intense challenges to take pole position for Monaco Grand Prix and bolster his credentials as the title favourite on Sunday. <\/p>\n

Maximising pace on the narrow streets without clipping the ever-present barriers means the 19-year-old Italian goes into Monday\u2019s race with a chance to extend his and Mercedes\u2019<\/a> winning streaks and stretch his already-impressive 43-point standings lead.<\/p>\n

\"Kimi<\/p>\n

Kimi Antonelli of Mercedes celebrates another poll.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Antonelli saved his best for last to beat Max Verstappen of Red Bull by just 0.043 of a second and extend Mercedes\u2019 streak of qualifying on pole for every grand prix this season. Lewis Hamilton was third for Ferrari.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was one of those laps that we call a magic lap. I was able to put it all together,\u201d Antonelli said.<\/p>\n

Antonelli\u2019s teammate and title rival George Russell was only sixth and told broadcaster Sky Sports he was \u201cbamboozled\u201d why the Mercedes car suited Antonelli\u2019s style better than his.<\/p>\n

Qualifying is typically more important in Monaco than any other track in F1 because it is almost impossible to overtake on the narrow, twisty street circuit. <\/p>\n

\u201cI just need to get a clean start, don\u2019t try to do the magic start,\u201d Antonelli said.<\/p>\n

Verstappen said he was surprised to be starting second and Hamilton suggested his chances of winning might rest on the remote chance of rain.<\/p>\n

Antonelli will now be favourite for a fifth grand prix win in a row on Monday. That\u2019s a feat that only Verstappen and Hamilton have achieved among current drivers. Mercedes is aiming to continue its run of winning every grand prix so far this season, though Lando Norris won one sprint race in Miami for McLaren.<\/p>\n

\"Kimi<\/p>\n

Kimi Antonelli sits in the Mercedes garage with his race engineer Peter Bonnington.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Antonelli leads by 43 points from Russell after a tense wheel-to-wheel battle between them at the last race in Canada ended abruptly with an engine failure for Russell. If he can keep it up, he\u2019d be the youngest F1 world champion in history.<\/p>\n

Antonelli praised Mercedes for improving the car\u2019s setup after Ferrari led both Friday practice sessions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe team did an incredibly big turnaround compared to yesterday in terms of setup. Yesterday, I\u2019m not going to lie, we were struggling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ferrari\u2019s pace in Friday practice raised hopes of a first win since October 2024 for the Italian team, but it ended up with neither car on the front row of the grid as Hamilton said he didn\u2019t understand why the car felt \u201cdrastically different.\u201d Ferrari was without team principal Fred Vasseur, who missed qualifying for medical reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very, very difficult\u201d to challenge Antonelli and Verstappen, Hamilton said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s overtaking. I hope that we can get a really good start and maybe apply some pressure to the two and need rain, probably.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charles Leclerc starts his home race fourth and gave Ferrari work to do before the race to fix damage after he clipped a barrier on his final attempt.<\/p>\n

McLaren is off the pace of the top three teams with Oscar Piastri qualifying seventh and defending champion Lando Norris eighth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kimi Antonelli mastered one of Formula 1\u2019s most intense challenges to take pole position for Monaco Grand Prix…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":719867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-719866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=719866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/719867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=719866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=719866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=719866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}