Kevin Magnussen considers his lap to P6 in Monaco Grand Prix qualifying as perhaps the best of his Formula 1 career.

The Dane once again put Haas' single lap pace to good use to claim the 'best of the rest' position narrowly ahead of Renault's Daniel Ricciardo.

After a penalty for Pierre Gasly, it means Magnussen will start fifth but it almost went horribly wrong in Q2 after a brush against the barrier at Mirabeau.

“I hit the wall and damaged the front wing”, he explained to the official F1 website.

“I had to abort that lap and come in and change it. That wasn’t planned so they were stressing like hell, but they still did it and turned it around and enabled me to get out and do the laps that I was meant to. Just brilliant!”

Once into Q3, it was then he produced the magic lap to claim sixth and he was asked if he considered it among his best in F1.

“I think so – it was good," he replied.

Showing Haas' progress, Magnussen's best time was 1.5s faster than what the American team achieved last year in Monte Carlo, with their performance also boosted by the Spec 2 Ferrari engine.

And much of it was down to confidence in the baseline set-up of the VF-19.

“We’ve had a good car all weekend so we haven’t really touched it actually”, Kevin revealed.

“We just [ran] the set-up that we started in FP1 basically. We’ve just tried to go forward a little bit on mechanical balance and then we’ve gone back again and kind of just left it. It’s been really good."

As for the lap: “It felt amazing,” he added. “It’s such a thrill going around these streets at that speed. It’s bloody good fun you know, it’s really good.”

The biggest wish now for Magnussen... That the increased threat of rain on Sunday doesn't materialise.