Kimi Raikkonen secured his first pole position in nine years on Saturday afternoon when he set a blistering pace around the streets of the Principality to record the fastest time ahead of his Scuderia Ferrari teammate, Sebastian Vettel in what is the Italian team's 59th front row lock out.

It was also the 50th pole position recorded by a Finnish driver, Kimi's first since the French Grand Prix back in 2008.

Valtteri Bottas was third fastest overall on a day Mercedes would like to forget as Lewis Hamilton continued his struggle in Monaco by missing the all important Q3 for the first time since the Italian Grand Prix back in 2013.

“That was an excellent lap from Valtteri who wrung every last drop of performance out of the car this afternoon and gave us a fighting chance in the race with a P3 grid position,” said James Allison. “

Clearly we have a significant job of work on our hands to understand why the car was so difficult to drive for Lewis - and to figure out what we can do with the limited adjustments we can make, and the slightly greater freedom in race strategy, to recover as good a result as possible tomorrow. “

The triple world champion ended up 14th but will start tomorrow's race from 13th after Jenson Button, who qualified in a brilliant ninth place, takes his 15 place grid drop due to an engine change.

His McLaren Honda teammate, Stoffel Vandoorne, crashed out in the dying minutes of Q2, putting paid to Lewis Hamilton's final chance to get into the top ten as he was forced to slow for the yellow flags. ironically Stoffel was in P10 at the time of the crash, but due to his three place grid drop for an accident with Felipe Massa last time out in Spain, he will drop to P12 for Sunday's race.

The two Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo finished fourth and fifth respectively and while Max Verstappen wasn't too upset with the outcome, Daniel was furious.

"On my out-lap we came out in traffic and it seemed that we had a clear track behind so l don't know why we didn't wait and put me in clear air,”” he told Sky sports. “Unless the timer was going down and we weren't going to make it out of the pits, which l don't think was the case, it just seemed that we made a stupid, silly error. "

'From the car it seemed obvious. Maybe I am missing something but it seemed an obvious and basic mistake. The race is today to be honest. Qualifying is everything around here. We're better than fifth. We under-achieved so much and this is the last place to do that. It's frustrating and l am not happy at all."

  1. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 1:12.178
    2. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, +0.043
    3. Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes, +0.045
    4. Max Verstappen, Red Bull, +0.318
    5. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull, +0.382
    6. Carlos Sainz, Toro Rosso, +0.984
    7. Sergio Perez, Force India, +1.151
    8. Romain Grosjean, Haas, +1.171
    9. Jenson Button, McLaren, +1.435
    10. Stoffel Vandoorne, McLaren
    11. Daniil Kvyat, Toro Rosso, 1:13.516
    12. Nico Hulkenberg, Renault, 1:13.628
    13. Kevin Magnussen, Haas, 1:13.959
    14. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 1:14.106
    15. Felipe Massa, Williams, 1:20.529
    16. Esteban Ocon, Force India, 1:14.101
    17. Jolyon Palmer, Renault, 1:14.696
    18. Lance Stroll, Williams, 1:14.893
    19. Pascal Wehrlein, Sauber, 1:15.159
    20. Marcus Ericsson, Sauber, 1:15.276