Nico Rosberg set the fastest time of a disjointed final practice session for the Canadian Grand Prix as two red flags interrupted running.

In cool conditions, Kimi Raikkonen was heading Rosberg by just 0.001s when Felipe Nasr crashed heavily in bizarre fashion with 20 minutes remaining of the session. Attempting to warm his tyres up, Nasr lost control of his Sauber on the long back straight approaching the final chicane, and speared in to the wall on the inside of the track.

With the Sauber heavily damaged and leaving debris across the track, ten minutes were lost as the car was recovered. A busy track at the restart saw Rosberg improve to a 1:15.660 to go fastest, but running was soon halted again as Jenson Button stopped on track.

Button's McLaren stopped at Turn 7 and couldn't be recovered in time for the session to restart. It capped off a frustrating final practice for the team, with Fernando Alonso requiring a power unit change and completing just three laps in the closing minutes before his team-mate's problem cost him any more running.

Lewis Hamilton was another driver to struggle in FP3, ending the session slowest and with just nine laps to his name. Hamilton and Rosberg had both stayed in the garage early in the session as the track cleaned up following overnight rain, but having skipped the opening 20 minutes Hamilton then struggled on his first run and returned to the pits before Nasr's crash.

With Hamilton straight out on supersoft tyre after the first red flag, he then missed his braking point at Turn 1 and had to cut Turn 2 but was unable to start another run before the second stoppage.

With such low grip levels, a number of drivers were struggling but Raikkonen seemed more comfortable in the Ferrari as he went quickest before Rosberg's late lap. Raikkonen was one of the few drivers to improve before Button stopped on track, with Romain Grosjean in third unable to after running wide at the hairpin.

Grosjean had been just 0.011s off Raikkonen's time on soft tyres as Lotus continued to look strong, posing a threat to Williams in this afternoon's qualifying session. It looks set to be a close battle between the two teams, with Valtteri Bottas fourth and Felipe Massa seventh having failed to improve on the supersoft tyre.

Sergio Perez and Daniil Kvyat were fifth and sixth between the two Williams', with Sebastian Vettel in eighth having been unable to set a representative time on the supersofts. Carlos Sainz and Pastor Maldonado rounded out the top ten, with a number of drivers failing to complete a qualifying simulation run.

Click here for Friday's gallery from the Canadian Grand Prix

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Pos Driver Team Time Laps
01 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:15.660 17
02 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1:16.233 20
03 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:16.772 14
04 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:16.914 17
05 Sergio Perez Force India 1:16.993 16
06 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull 1:17.021 19
07 Felipe Massa Williams 1:17.122 18
08 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1:17.197 18
09 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 1:17.396 25
10 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 1:17.573 12
11 Marcus Ericsson Sauber 1:17.578 21
12 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:17.876 14
13 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1:17.892 18
14 Felipe Nasr Sauber 1:18.446 12
15 Jenson Button McLaren 1:18.473 18
16 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso 1:18.492 18
17 Will Stevens Manor 1:19.822 16
18 Fernando Alonso McLaren 1:19.874 3
19 Roberto Merhi Manor 1:20.231 16
20 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:21.492 9
Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.

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