Vettel, Hamilton had no hope of catching Ricciardo

Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel were blown away by Daniel Ricciardo in qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix, with both title rivals admitting they had no chance of catching the dominant Red Bull in Monte Carlo. Ricciardo ended a weekend of lap-record lowering by setting a new benchmark at one minute 10.810 seconds.

Vettel completed the front row, two tenths down on the Australian, with Hamilton another two tenths further back in third.

Ricciardo ought to have had his team-mate in close quarters, but Max Verstappen will start from the back of the grid after crashing in FP3.

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With their power deficit wiped out, Red Bull have dominated in Monte Carlo, with Ricciardo topping the timesheets in every practice and qualifying session.

And though Mercedes are much improved from their 2017 performance in the principality, Hamilton admitted pole was never in the offing.

"We knew we wouldn't be quickest, we did the best we could, the car was in a good place," said Hamilton.

"My first Q3 lap I was happy with. My last one I was 0.27s up and then I lost it all in the last sector so I wasn't necessarily happy with that. It wouldn't have made the difference for pole but we would have been second.

"We knew what was going to happen this weekend. It still doesn't feel great, but it's just one race."

Vettel won from second on the grid last season, although it came with accusations of Ferrari manipulating pitstop strategy away from his pole-sitting team-mate Kimi Raikkonen.

"There's always a feeling that there's a little bit [to come] but I don't think there was a threat to Daniel's time today," said Vettel. "Well done to Daniel, he owned the qualifying session.

"They looked strong on Thursday, they looked strong this morning, we got as close as we could, now we'll see what we can do for tomorrow.

"We were playing around with the set-up trying to squeeze everything out because we knew we had to if we wanted to have a front row or pole. We put ourselves in a good position.

"It was expected that Red Bull would be quick here.

"They have a strong car, they have more downforce than everybody else. At this track we knew they would be strong."