Monaco, a fantasy land of opulence and excess, nearly delivered a fairytale on Saturday. But in the end reality took precedence and the skill of Max Verstappen and speed of his Red Bull were too much for Fernando Alonso.

With seconds to go in the most compelling qualifying session for a long time, Alonso was fastest and apparently on course to start from the very front of the grid for the first time in 11 years.

When Verstappen finished the second of three sectors of his final lap more than 0.2 seconds adrift of Alonso’s benchmark, that pole looked to be on.

But Verstappen’s final sector was phenomenal, and it clawed back all that time and more. As the world champion crossed the line, the crowd holding its breath in the glorious Cote d’Azur sunshine, Verstappen’s name popped back up to the top of the table, and you could almost hear the heartbreak.

Even Alonso’s old rival Lewis Hamilton, sixth in the upgraded Mercedes, was disappointed. “I was really hopeful that Fernando would have pole at the end,” he said, “as that would be amazing.”

Alonso has been a divisive figure for much of his career, and he has endured something close to torture for the past decade, struggling in cars not befitting his talent, even stepping away from F1 for two years in 2019 and 2020 because he had had enough.

But his move to Aston Martin has been perfectly timed. The team have made remarkable progress, the car is as competitive as anything that’s not a Red Bull, and Alonso has emerged as one of the heroes of a season that is disappearing under an avalanche of Red Bull success.

Alonso has been thrilling people on the track, with four podiums from the first five races and third place in the championship, and delighting them off it, whether it be with a knowing response to wild rumours of a romance with Taylor Swift, or going viral after apparently delighting in sniffing some flowers while waiting to be interviewed in the TV ‘pen’ in Miami.

Alonso, at the age of 41, is revelling in the opportunity to let old fans and new know what he is about.

“It feels great,” he said. “I always had self-confidence in what I could do in terms of driving – over-confidence sometimes. But that is part of my DNA probably. It is a proof maybe for people outside.

“There were a lot of new fans coming from 2014 or 2015 and (thanks to Netflix’s) ‘Drive to Survive’, and they only saw me fighting for Q3 or retiring from the race with some smoke at the back.

“Now, they are surprised they see me fighting a little bit towards the front. For me it is OK and I am enjoying. But it is more enjoyable that new fans can see that we are fast.”

Sitting beside him in the news conference after qualifying, Verstappen laughed at Alonso’s remark about engine smoke.

Alonso was almost certainly referring to his many retirements with Alpine last year. But some may also be reminded of the difficult first days of Honda’s return to F1 with McLaren, just a few days after the Japanese company announced they were returning to F1 with Aston Martin in 2026.

They said they would have “no problem” reuniting with Alonso, who Honda Racing Corporation president Koji Watanabe called a “genius driver” on Wednesday.

There is a bit of a bromance going on between Alonso and Verstappen. They both admire each other’s ability, and perhaps see a little reflection of themselves in their fighting spirit and something of an anti-hero status, and they often share warm words. Saturday in Monaco was no different.

“For me, it is not a surprise,” Verstappen said. “I grew up watching Fernando in F1 and I like his style and for him to be here at 41 is very impressive.

“It is a great example for people out there. If you stay committed and believe in yourself and believe in the opportunities that come to you, you can show something like he is doing right now. But of course you need also the natural raw talent with that.”

Could Alonso finally win again?

Can Alonso threaten Verstappen for a win that would be his first for 10 years? It seems unlikely, and he knows it.

“To win, we need help from Max,” he said. “But we cannot take it for granted that all three (top) cars will finish the race with no issues. This is Monaco and it’s going to be demanding.”

Will you help, Verstappen was asked?

“I would like to see Fernando win,” he said, smiling again. “But I would also like to see myself win. It’s a tough one. I will think about it.”

He will do nothing of the sort, of course. Both will have their eyes on the prize. The race will likely be slow-burn as usual, but drama of some sort is never far away in Monaco.

“If it is a normal race, we should be on the podium, more or less secure in the positions we see here,” Alonso said.

“If there is an opportunity, a mechanical failure from Max or a bad pit stop or strategy or whatever, we will take it.

“There is no way you will overtake anyone. It is just avoiding a mistake. Sounds boring, and from the outside looks easy, but it is still extremely difficult to keep the car in good shape for those 78 laps.”

How did the new Mercedes get on?

Aside from the battle at the front, much of the focus in Monaco was on the revised Mercedes. The team turned up with their long-awaited upgrade, and it looked like an attempt to get as close to a Red Bull design as possible within the limits of a car that was built to a very different philosophy.

Hamilton said he felt the difference immediately but Saturday was a fraught day for the team. He looked quick in final practice, but crashed at Mirabeau at the end of the session.

And the way the marshals recovered his car, lifting it high on a crane so the world could see the secrets of its new floor, did not impress team principal Toto Wolff.

“Whoever performed the crane has probably worked for Cirque du Soleil before,” Wolff said.

“I mean, honestly. I don’t even comprehend. The car was on the road, you could have put it on a truck, and rather than that you showcase a car to everyone in the world. That was sub-optimal for us to say the least.”

He took some solace from the fact a similar thing happened to the Red Bull of Sergio Perez when he crashed in the first part of qualifying, and expressed some regret as to his criticism in hindsight.

“By the way, don’t thrash the stewards,” he said. “The Cirque du Soleil is OK, but everyone is doing their best and I don’t want to be a team principal that lashes out on stewards that are doing their job. But it was still Cirque du Soleil.”

Monaco provided an inconclusive assessment of the Mercedes upgrade, as the team and drivers had always said it would. Hamilton compromised himself by going the wrong way on set-up and Russell over-reached and made mistakes.

“Sixth and eighth is not good,” Wolff said. “But 0.3secs off pole with both drivers having a less-than positive Q3 is solid, actually OK.

“With Lewis and George (Russell), if we would have put the lap together, we would have played the top six or maybe the top four and that’s OK.”

As for the other story that dominated the build-up to the weekend – the claim in two reports, one in the UK and one in Italy, that Hamilton had been approached by Ferrari – Wolff was dismissive, as the seven-time champion had been on Thursday.

“There is nothing behind that,” Wolff said. “How it is at the moment with us, we are in a super-happy position with Lewis, there weren’t any stumbling blocks in the contract negotiations.

“We have a pact that we’ve had for many years that we wouldn’t talk to any other driver until we have made a decision whether to stay together or not so it was never a millimetre in doubt.

“Someone just felt to place that, maybe to play a role in what seems to be negotiations. But it is not negotiations, it is sitting on a table and saying what is it we need to adapt in a contract.”

This, he said, was mostly dates and media commitments. A new deal and an extension of the relationship that created the most successful team and driver in F1 history is just around the corner, it seems.