Red Bull’s Mark Webber will start first on the grid for the first time in over a year at Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix, even though Michael Schumacher was fastest in Saturday’s qualifying.
Russian driver Vitaly Petrov will start 18th, his second-best grid position of the season.
Seven-time champion Schumacher will start sixth after a five-place penalty for causing a collision with Williams driver Bruno Senna in Spain, but set the fastest time with a lap of 1 minute 14. 301 seconds.
Webber was 0.08 seconds slower, while Schumacher’s teammate Nico Rosberg will start alongside Webber in second after setting the third-fastest time of 1 minute 14.448 seconds.
For Schumacher, the result was his best showing in qualifying since he returned to the sport in 2010.
“Wow, what a feeling, thank you,” he told the Mercedes crew over the radio, while team principal Ross Brawn, a longtime partner from the German’s days at Ferrari, called him a “little star.”
McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton will start third, ahead of Lotus driver Romain Grosjean, while Schumacher’s penalty means he splits the two Ferraris, with Fernando Alonso fifth and Felipe Massa seventh.
Two world champions start eighth and ninth, with Lotus’ Kimi Raikkonen ahead of title holder Sebastian Vettel.
Jenson Button, the 2009 champion, will start 12th at a track where it is notoriously difficult to overtake after he failed to make the cut by 0.3 seconds in the second session.
Williams driver Pastor Maldonado, the surprise winner of the last race in Spain, qualified ninth but will start 19th because he received a penalty after appearing to try to ram Sergio Perez in practice earlier Saturday.
The first session was stopped after five minutes when a rear wheel came off Sauber driver Perez’s car after he misjudged a corner in the Swimming Pool section and slid sideways into the wall. He failed to set a time and will start 24th and last as a result.
This was the second qualifying accident for Perez in two appearances in Monaco, after suffered a big shunt in 2011 that ruled him out for two races.
In the second session, Toro Rosso’s Jean-Eric Vergne span into the barriers, losing his front wing, but the session was not stopped and he will start 17th.
Petrov set a time of 1 minute 17.404 seconds in the first session, almost a second slower than his Finnish teammate Heikki Kovalainen one place ahead of him in 17th.
The grid:
1. Mark Webber (Red Bull)
2. Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)
3. Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
4. Romain Grosjean (Lotus)
5. Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)
6. Michael Schumacher (Mercedes)
7. Felipe Massa (Ferrari)
8. Kimi Raikkonen (Lotus)
9. Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull)
10. Nico Hulkenberg (Force India)
11. Kamui Kobayashi (Sauber)
12. Jenson Button (McLaren)
13. Bruno Senna (Williams)
14. Paul di Resta (Force India)
15. Daniel Ricciardo (Toro Rosso)
16. Jean-Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso)
17. Heikki Kovalainen (Caterham)
18. Vitaly Petrov (Caterham)
19. Pastor Maldonado (Williams)
20. Timo Glock (Marussia)
21. Pedro de la Rosa (HRT)
22. Charles Pic (Marussia)
23. Narain Karthikeyan (HRT)
24. Sergio Perez (Sauber)
