Pastor Maldonado qualified ninth but will start 19th after the Spanish Grand
Prix winner collected a 10-place penalty for causing a collision with
Sauber’s Sergio Perez in final practice.
That means Sebastian Vettel will move up to ninth, the reigning champion
bizarrely opting to save a set of tyres in the top-10 shoot-out in which he
failed to set a time.
An indicator as to how drivers view the importance of qualifying was
underlined by Vettel, winner here last year, who had completed 22 laps after
the first two sessions.
Raikkonen only just managed to squeeze into the top-10, edging Force India’s
Nico Hulkenberg by a tenth of a second, the German starting 10th ahead of
Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi.
Qualifying for Jenson Button, however, was again a huge disappointment as the
winner of this race in 2009 will start 12th.
Struggling with his tyres, the McLaren star finished out of the top 10 for the
second successive race and for the first time since the end of 2008 in his
abject Honda days.
Williams’ Bruno Senna and Paul di Resta in his Force India line up 13th and
14th, with the Toro Rosso duo of Daniel Ricciardo and Jean-Eric Vergne 15th
and 16th.
Vergne’s session finished early as he broke off his nose in a minor shunt into
a barrier on the slope down to the port chicane.
Earlier, and less than five minutes into a chaotic opening 20- minute session,
the red flags were out after Sergio Perez crashed in qualifying around
Monaco for the second successive year.
On this occasion Perez appeared to suffer an issue with his front -left
suspension, potentially as a hangover after the incident in practice with
Maldonado.
Emerging out of the swimming pool complex the Mexican was unable to straighten
up his Sauber, hitting a barrier to his left.
That comprehensively dislodged his front-left wheel, whilst also removing the
rear left and forcing him to park up at La Rascasse, leaving him without a
time and starting at the back.
Ahead of him are the six you would expect, but it was not without some
consternation for Vettel and Raikkonen who were forced to put on the
supersoft tyres towards the end to guarantee survival.
The Caterhams of Heikki Kovalainen and Vitaly Petrov will line up 17th and
18th, followed by Maldonado.
Then come Timo Glock for Marussia and the HRT of Pedro de la Rosa, with
team-mates Charles Pic and Narain Karthikeyan 22nd and 23rd respectively.
As FIA rules require he still appeared as the lead driver in the post-race
press conference, even though what would have been his 69th career pole will
not count.
Nonetheless a delighted Schumacher, who set a time of one minute 14.301secs to
beat Webber by 0.080secs, said: “I’m more than thrilled about getting pole
here in Monaco.
“To all of us this place is the track of the year, it has a very prestigious
position, and to manage pole here after what I have gone through in the last
two and a half years is fabulous.
“I told you guys in the press conference my situation would be pole, start the
race from sixth and then win it.”