Nico Rosberg rode his luck to take a controversial sixth pole of his career and his second in succession at the Monaco Grand Prix on Saturday as Mercedes swept the front row of the grid for Sunday's 78-laps race.

The 28-year-old German, who lies three points behind his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton in the drivers' title race, lost control of his car and ran down the escape road at Mirabeau on his final flying lap.

He had to abort his effort for that lap as yellow flags were waved – a signal that slowed the field behind him and wrecked Hamilton's hopes of clocking an improved lap to steal pole in the final seconds.

Hamilton was visibly upset at the way his hopes of claiming pole were scuppered by his teammate, appearing stony faced in the post-qualifying press conference.

The two Mercedes had dominated the session and will start the race ahead of the two Red Bulls with Australian Daniel Ricciardo qualifying third ahead of his more experienced and illustrious team-mate, four-time defending champion Sebastian Vettel.

Two-time former champion Fernando Alonso was fifth ahead of his Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, the 2007 champion, Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne of Toro Rosso and Danish rookie Kevin Magnussen of McLaren.

Another rookie, Russian Daniil Kvyat in the second Toro Rosso was ninth and Mexican Sergio Perez was 10th for Force India.

Rosberg's best lap of one minute and 15.989 left him just 0.059 seconds ahead of Hamilton as the two Mercedes men demonstrated they are the class of the field following five straight wins this year.