Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Defending Formula One champion Max Verstappen produced a superb final lap to take pole position at the Monaco Grand Prix on Saturday and deny Aston Martin veteran Fernando Alonso his first pole in 11 years.
Verstappen called his first pole at Monaco "very lovely" but there was nothing to cheer for his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez as last year's race winner crashed early in qualifying.
Alpine's Esteban Ocon surprisingly led near the end of the session before the 41-year-old Alonso moved back to the top as he chased a first pole since the German GP in 2012, when he was with Ferrari.
But Verstappen had other ideas as he brushed the walls of the sinewy street circuit to beat Alonso's time by just 0.084 seconds and clinch his fourth pole of the season and 23rd of his career.
"I knew this weekend it was going to be tight," the 25-year-old Verstappen said. "I definitely pushed a bit harder."
Alonso walked over to Verstappen and shook his hand after a tight tussle between the two-time F1 champions.
"Feels great, I always had confidence in what I could do," Alonso said. "We're starting on the front row in Monaco, so job done."
Alonso has four third-place finishes in five races, so Verstappen joked that he'd try to help him finally win again.
"I'll think about it. I'd like to see Fernando win, but I'd like to win myself," Verstappen said. "I love watching his style."
Ferrari's Charles Leclerc was chasing a third straight pole on his home circuit but qualified in third, 0.106 behind Verstappen.
But Leclerc was then handed a three-place grid penalty by race stewards for impeding McLaren's Lando Norris. Stewards ruled that Norris was on a fast lap and caught up with Leclerc in the middle of the tunnel, where he was clearly impeded.
Stewards reviewed team radio and found that Ferrari failed to give Leclerc any warning about Norris' approach until the other driver was already directly behind him.
Last year, Ferrari made a series of blunders with strategy calls and team orders -- including at the Monaco GP, where Leclerc missed out on a possible victory when he was called into the pits at the wrong time and ended up finishing fourth.
Saturday's grid penalty move moved Ocon up from fourth to third, while Ferrari's Carlos Sainz Jr. improves to fourth ahead of Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes in fifth.
Pierre Gasly (Alpine), George Russell (Mercedes), Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri) and Lando Norris (McLaren) rounded out the top 10.
Perez will start from the back.
Regarded as one of F1's best drivers on street circuits, the Mexican driver lost control of the rear when entering Sainte-Devote too quickly, thudded into the barriers and bust his left tire to bring out a red flag.
"He'll be kicking himself for that," Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said, adding that Verstappen's lap was "one of the best laps he's ever driven in quali."
Hamilton, who had crashed near the end of the third practice, left it late to make it into Q2 on a new set of soft tires and then also squeezed into Q3 on his last lap.
"It was so tough. This car is a son of a gun. I was pushing so hard," the seven-time F1 champion Hamilton said. "When you are overdriving, it is the worst place to be because the car doesn't do what you want."
Alonso started Q3 with the fastest time and set the tone for a thrilling ending.
"I'm pushing like an animal," Alonso said on team radio.
He came close, but the Spanish veteran is well placed on Sunday to push for his first win since 2013.
Monaco is arguably the toughest track for overtaking but its claustrophobic nature leads to tension and crashes.
"If an opportunity comes we will take it," Alonso said. "We cannot take it for granted that all three cars will finish."
Verstappen has won three races this season and leads the championship by 16 points ahead of Perez -- a gap that could significantly increase.
All of Verstappen's 38 career wins have been with Red Bull and he needs one more to beat Sebastian Vettel's tally when he won his four F1 titles with the team from 2010-13.
Earlier Saturday, Verstappen led an eventful final practice ahead of Perez and Aston Martin's Lance Stroll.
A red flag ended the session with a few minutes left after Hamilton made an uncharacteristic error, oversteering and slamming the crash barrier with his front left tire.
Verstappen's rear left almost hit the barrier coming out of Sainte-Devote, a near-miss which is not unusual in Monaco given the nature of the sinewy street circuit.
Leclerc complained that he was having trouble heading into the "S" section next to the swimming pool -- where Sainz crashed late in Friday's second practice.
American actor Michael Douglas had a prime view of it all as he watched from a balcony overlooking the track.
Haas driver Kevin Magnussen's car stalled on the track near the end of P3, prompting a virtual safety car. Moments later, with tires cooler, Hamilton locked up as he snaked past Fairmont Hotel and wedged into the barriers at Mirabeau.
Hamilton climbed out and slid under a barrier before walking back pensively with his hands behind his back as the car was hoisted high in the blue sky air by a crane.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.