There is no other event on the Formula One agenda where qualifying is as crucial to the outcome of the race as it is in Monte Carlo, except perhaps the old Hungaroring before they made alterations to the track to allow for more overtaking.
Just as it has been in the opening five rounds this season, qualifying for the 75th running of the Monaco Grand Prix was extremely hard fought and was ultimately settled by the tightest of margins, with the third placed Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas missing out on his first ever Monaco pole by just 0.045 seconds.
"It could have been a completely different Sunday with those extra five hundredths," said Valtteri, who finished fourth in the race, just short of securing his maiden Monaco podium.
In fact, the Finn was only two thousandths off Sebastian Vettel's P2 time in qualifying - equivalent to a mere nine centimetres on the 3.337 km street circuit.
The battle for fractions of a second continued on Sunday afternoon, as the Silver Arrows pit crews performed two of the three fastest stops of the race at just 2.61 and 2.65 seconds.
On the Monday following the Monaco Grand Prix, former DTM star and long-serving safety car driver Bernd Mayländer celebrated his 46th birthday.
The day before, however, it was business as usual, with Bernd leading the field for a ten-minute spell during the 78-lap race. Bernd's dearest wish was fulfilled as everyone involved emerged unscathed from the incident between Button and Wehrlein that saw the safety car deployed.
On a side-note, Lewis Hamilton took the wheel of the safety car on Thursday to chauffeur-drive the winner of a charity auction around the track.
