Nico Rosberg took his third pole position in a row today as Mercedes locked out the front row of the grid for the Monaco Grand Prix in a rain hit qualifying session.

The Red Bull drivers will be occupying the second row of the grid tomorrow, followed by Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso.

Q1 started just after rain hit Monaco – following three days of sunshine in the principality. The track was damp at the start of the session, making it necessary for everyone to come out on track on the intermediate Pirelli tyres.

Everyone headed out to get an early banker lap in, except for the three drivers who crashed during FP3, Felipe Massa, Romain Grosjean and Adrian Sutil.

Jules Bianchi was struck out of the session early with an airbox fire, ending his session before it had really even started.

The Lotus F1 team got Grosjean out onto track in the final minutes of the session and repayed them by setting the fastest time after the session.

Ferrari were not able to get Felipe Massa’s car ready in time to get it out and he will start from the pit lane.

Giedo van der Garde was the greatest surprise of the first session, getting his Caterham into Q2. Paul di Resta, Charles Pic, Esteban Gutierrez, Max Chilton, Jules Bianchi and Felipe Massa were eliminated after Q1.

The second part of qualifying made it difficult for drivers to decide which tyres to be on as the track continued to dry. In the end they all opted for slicks. Van der Garde was the first driver to switch to the dry supersoft tyres and managed to out-qualify Pastor Maldonado and qualify an amazing P15 for the Caterham team.

Jean-Eric Vergne surprised all by securing his place in Q3 for the first time this year.
Grosjean, unfortunately was not able to make it through and blamed one of the Toro Rossos for holding him up.

Hulkenberg, Ricciardo, Grosjean, Bottas, van der Garde and Maldonado were all eliminated after Q2.

The track was dry enough for everyone to head out on supersoft dry tyres for the third session. Lap times were falling like crazy as the track kept improving.

Alonso was one of the first drivers to change tyres and head out for his final run, giving him two chances to have a go at a time. But he only managed P6 with his final effort.

Despite how it after FP3, Ferrari and Lotus were nowhere near the battle for pole in qualifying and it was between the Mercedes and Red Bull drivers.

It was Nico Rosberg who went fastest with a 1.13.876 by the end of the session with Lewis Hamilton one tenth behind him.

Below are the full results for F1 Qualifying in Monaco.