Monaco: Nico Rosberg will start from pole position in Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix after an inquiry by race officials cleared the Mercedes driver of any underhand tactics in qualifying.
The German’s performance in Saturday’s qualifying triggered an official investigation after he lost control and left the circuit, causing yellow flags to be waved in the final minutes of a tense session.
Rosberg’s teammate Lewis Hamilton, whose lap was wrecked by the flags, was incensed, claiming that he would have taken pole if he had completed his lap at full speed.
Suspicions were raised that Rosberg had “done a Schumacher” — in 2006 Michael Schumacher was stripped of pole after race stewards decided that he had stopped deliberately after running wide at the Rascasse corner in his Ferrari.
But, with the inquiry clearing him of any wrongdoing, Rosberg keeps pole from Hamilton, with the Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and world champion Sebastian Vettel occupying the second row.
Race stewards in Monaco said they could find “no evidence of any offence”.
Both Mercedes drivers were on their final Q3 flying laps, with Rosberg already enjoying a slight advantage having claimed the provisional pole with an earlier fastest lap, when he locked up at Mirabeau and slid down the escape road.
Hamilton had to ease off for the resultant yellow flags and then abandoned his lap, which had been a few hundredths of a second quicker than Rosberg’s in sector one.
Rosberg said that he had simply made a mistake.
“I tried to make it, but turned out as I was going to hit the tyre wall,” explained Rosberg. “It was close but I managed to go into the escape road.
“I know that I had a really good banker in there, so I tried to push that little bit more and went over the edge.”
Hamilton refused to answer when asked if he felt Rosberg had tried to deliberately disrupt his pole bid. “I can’t say I’ve been in this position before. Never had that happen before,” said Hamilton.
Rosberg insisted he had thought pole was lost when he went off. “I thought it was over,” he said. “I thought the track would ramp up and somebody else would do a time.
“But I’m really, really happy — to be on pole at home is fantastic, it couldn’t be better.”
Asked for his thoughts on his incident denying Hamilton a pole shot, Rosberg replied: “Of course I’m sorry for what happened for Lewis. I didn’t know exactly where he was until I was reversing and saw him coming up.
“Of course that’s not great, but that’s the way it is.”
Hamilton added: “Nico has been quick all weekend and I’ve been working away with it all weekend. I knew starting the last lap that this was it, and I was two [hundredths] up.
“I was on the pole lap, but I guess it doesn’t matter.”
