During Saturday's qualifying, Daniel Ricciardo, who was driving for Red Bull Racing, achieved the first pole position of his career.

Sergio Pérez completed the podium for Force India, the team's first appearance in the top three of the season and their first since the 2015 Russian Grand Prix.

Following their controversial crash and double retirement at the previous race in Spain two weeks earlier, particular attention was on championship leaders Mercedes and their drivers Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton.

He urged the team to pull the introduction of the power unit forward to the Monaco race, instead of the following Grand Prix in Canada as originally planned.

[17] The race marked a reason for celebration at McLaren, as the team had started their first ever Grand Prix at Monaco fifty years earlier.

The first two usually take place on Friday, with Monaco being the single exemption, where those sessions are held on Thursday,[21] in order to minimise road-closure disruptions to local residents.

[22] In the first session on Thursday morning, Lewis Hamilton topped the timesheets with a time of 1:15.537, one tenth of a second faster than his teammate Nico Rosberg.

Several other drivers had dangerous moments in turn one as well, but the most severe incident of the session came three minutes to the end: A drain cover had come loose around the first corner, puncturing Rosberg's left rear tyre and damaging Jenson Button's McLaren MP4-31, causing the practice to be red flagged, ultimately ending the session.

Two more VSC periods ensued when Rio Haryanto touched the inside barrier at the same spot and later after Kevin Magnussen crashed at the final corner.

[26] In the third practice session on Saturday morning, Sebastian Vettel set the fastest time, about one hundredth of a second faster than Hamilton.

Renault had different fortunes, as both drivers had accidents, with Jolyon Palmer hindering one of Hamilton's flying laps as he crashed at the swimming pool section.

[21] In the first part of qualifying (Q1), the session got interrupted shortly after it had started, as Felipe Nasr came to a halt at the exit of the tunnel, caused by an engine failure.

Max Verstappen was the last to set a representative time, but touched the guardrail at the swimming pool chicane and crashed into the wall, causing another red flag period.

As the session got back under way, it were the two Manor cars of Rio Haryanto and Pascal Wehrlein, as well as Jolyon Palmer and Marcus Ericsson who joined Nasr and Verstappen on the sidelines, as they were eliminated.

Meanwhile, Daniel Ricciardo set his fastest lap on the harder supersoft compound tyre, meaning that he would be able to start the race on them, should it have stayed dry.

[28][30] Ricciardo's pole position was the first for a Renault-powered turbocharged car since Ayrton Senna's front-of-the-grid start at the 1986 Mexican Grand Prix for Lotus.

[39] As Ricciardo led the field behind the safety car, Daniil Kvyat had to come into the pit lane on lap two, complaining of technical issues.

Ricciardo made the switch on lap 24, but Hamilton stayed out, opting to remain on the wet tyre until the track dried out enough to go straight to slicks.

However, a last-second change of mind by his engineers to not equip slicks led to a long stop, as crews scrambled to fetch the proper tyres.

[41] At that point, the order stood as follows: Hamilton, Ricciardo, Pérez, Vettel, Alonso, Rosberg, Hülkenberg, Sainz, Button and Gutiérrez.

[38] On lap 50, the two Sauber cars collided at Rascasse corner, after Felipe Nasr had ignored instructions from the pit lane to let his teammate Ericsson behind him pass.

[44] At the podium interviews, conducted by Sky Sports F1 commentator Martin Brundle,[45] Hamilton thanked his team and expressed satisfaction about how the race went.

He pointed to the problems of driving on the full wet tyres for such a long distance, saying that they were about to "drop off", meaning to lose much of their grip to the race surface, when he came in to change.

In regard to his team's error and their different strategy at the previous race in Spain, which he felt had cost him a chance at victory there as well,[47] he said: "Two weekends in a row I've been screwed now.

Sergio Pérez on the other hand was "extremely happy" with the performance by him and the team, saying that the race was his favourite podium finish while driving for Force India.

[46] Speaking about the moment when Nico Rosberg let him past in the early stages of the race, Hamilton told the press that he had thanked his teammate for "being a gentleman".

[50] Felipe Nasr was adamant that the team orders he had received prior to the accident had been uncalled for, since his slower pace was due to low tyre temperatures.