At Monaco, both Mercedes cars struggled to find the right setup, while Ferrari were very fast yet again. Kimi Räikkönen got his first pole position since France 2008 by 0.043 seconds over Vettel, who himself was just 0.002 seconds clear of the Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas in third. But, crucially for the championship, Hamilton would start the race in thirteenth place. The two Ferraris stayed one and two until lap 34, when Räikkönen pitted to cover off the undercut from Bottas and Verstappen. Vettel stayed out for an extra five laps, putting in blistering lap times mostly quicker than those of Räikkönen on fresh supersofts. Vettel came in on lap 39, and rejoined ahead of Räikkönen, and led to the finish despite a safety car. But, after the race, talks arose that Ferrari had deliberately put Räikkönen on the slower strategy (Pirelli had said that ultrasofts could last an entire race distance, so the preferred strategy was to run on ultrasofts as long as possible) so that Vettel could maximize the points gain from Hamilton's lowly finish. This was the first Ferrari win at Monaco since 2001 and first Ferrari 1–2 finish since the infamous 2010 German Grand Prix. Ferrari retook the lead in the Constructors' Championship after both Mercedes cars had a poor race and Vettel increased his lead over Hamilton to 25 points.