REPORT: Qualifying Complete in Monte Carlo

Alex Albon will start the 2025 Monaco Grand Prix in P10, with Carlos Sainz just behind in P11, after a tight Qualifying session on the Monte Carlo streets.

It was a 1:11.213 for Alex in Q3, and a 1:11.362 for Carlos in Q2 as the FW47s ran two tyre compounds throughout Quali.

The result marks the second successive season Atlassian Williams Racing secured a top-10 start in Monaco, and continues our 2025 run of reaching Qualifying's final act on Saturday.

Our two drivers showed great speed throughout the day, ending FP3 in P6 (Alex) and P8 (Carlos) as we looked to learn how the tyres behaved.

As with the Emilia Romagna GP, firing up the C6 Pirelli was key to a fast lap, and both cars managed to escape Q1 with relative ease on the Soft tyre.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli triggered a late-session red flag in the opening 18-minute segment, leaving 14 cars to contest Q2.

George Russell soon followed his teammate to fall out of Qualifying after stopping in the tunnel midway through Q2, interrupting our run plan, but further reducing the amount of competition.

Alex and Carlos drove a contrary Quali strategy to many, by switching to the yellow-walled Medium compound at the start of Q2, but still remained in the mix despite the tyre delta.

Both went to the Soft compound for their final Q2 lap, however, and Alex snatched P3 to reach Q3 with a purple Sector 1, while Carlos missed out on P10 by a tenth.

More Medium tyres awaited Albono in Q3, and he sat P6 after his first run in Qualifying's final section before diving into the pit lane for Softs.

Unfortunately for Alex, no improvement followed on the C6 rubber, and he slipped to P10 as others went faster.

"Frustrating day," Alex began. "I think my Q2 lap was half a second quicker than my Q3, so we need to understand why. We were in a really good rhythm from FP1 to FP3 and then in Qualifying it seemed that the tyres were not working properly throughout, and they were inconsistent.

"With that Q2 lap I thought we finally got it to work then we lost grip again in Q3. Even though it’s a two-stop it’s still going to be a managed race to some extent so it will be interesting."

Carlos continued our reaction by commenting: "My weekend has been challenging from the beginning, never finding a sweet spot with the car.

"Despite that, I had enough pace to go into Q3 but for some reason the Soft tyre on our car felt a bit like a lottery and in Q2 we clearly didn’t switch it on, which meant we had no grip at all.

"It’s frustrating, but I think that tomorrow we might have an interesting race with the mandatory two-stops. We’ll try to make the most out of it.

James Vowles, Team Principal, wrapped things up by sharing: "Today was all about tyres. We didn’t have them working the right way with Carlos in Q2 or with Alex at the end of Q3.

"There is lots to learn and understand but that won’t apply tomorrow. The main element now is working on how we move forward with the new two-stop regulations in the race and I’m confident the car is still quick.