Vettel quickest in laid-back FP3 in Montreal

Andrew Lewin 10/06/2017 at 16:1110/06/2017 at 17:09

Sebastian Vettel set the fastest time in final practice ahead of qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix.

In a fairly calm session compared with the spinfest seen on Friday, Vettel's time of 1:12.572s put him almost three tenths faster than his Ferrari team mate Kimi Raikkonen. Lewis Hamilton was a further half a tenth back in third place in the Mercedes.

All three drivers have now each led one of the three practice sessions in Montreal, suggestion that the outcome of this afternoon's qualifying session is very much up in the air.

Sunnier weather boosted track temperatures on Saturday morning, but the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve remained rather dusty for FP3. The two Ferrari cars were first out for a shakedown lap, but it was Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo who was the first driver to set a timed lap on ultrasofts. The Australian was maximising his track time after losing Friday afternoon's session to an engine failure.

When Ferrari came back out for their first proper run, Vettel immediately relieved Ricciardo at the top, going faster by over a second. Behind Vettel, Raikkonen quickly moved into second place. However the team mates soon found themselves split by the arrival on track of two Mercedes, despite Hamilton and Bottas starting the day on the slower supersoft tyres.

The updated power unit component list for Canada

At the halfway point of the hour-long session, Vettel remained half a second clear of Hamilton. Verstappen had pushed ahead of Bottas into third place. Toro Rosso's Carlos Sainz was up to fifth just ahead of Ricciardo and Raikkonen as cars pitted for their second set of tyres.

When Vettel resumed he soon set the fastest time of the weekend so far, quicker than Hamilton's pole position from 2016. After saving a snap of oversteer in turn 1 on his first flying lap on ultras, Hamilton himself closed to within 0.354s of Vettel's time putting him just behind Raikkonen.

Bottas put himself up into fourth despite a scare that came close to planting him into the wall in turn 9. Hamilton had his own wiggle in the same spot toward the end of the session.

Verstappen made a late run to successfully claim fourth place away from Bottas in the final minutes. He came close to tapping the wall of champions with the rer of the RB13 in the process. A strong final run for Nico Hulkenberg put the Renault sixth ahead of Williams' Felipe Massa, pushing Ricciardo down to eighth place. The top ten were rounded out by another strong showing for Force India's Esteban Ocon ahead of the Toro Rossos of Carlos Sainz and Daniil Kvyat.

In contrast to Friday's sessions, there were minimal on-track incidents in FP3. As well as a lack of spins, there were also no major technical issues noted before the chequered flag called time on the session.

Free Practice 3 results

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:12.572s		20
2	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:12.864s	+ 0.292s	19
3	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:12.926s	+ 0.354s	22
4	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1:12.965s	+ 0.393s	22
5	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	1:13.210s	+ 0.638s	24
6	Nico Hülkenberg	Renault	1:13.493s	+ 0.921s	20
7	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:13.527s	+ 0.955s	22
8	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:13.545s	+ 0.973s	35
9	Esteban Ocon	Force India	1:13.635s	+ 1.063s	26
10	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:13.667s	+ 1.095s	22
11	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso	1:13.788s	+ 1.216s	23
12	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:13.885s	+ 1.313s	18
13	Sergio Pérez	Force India	1:13.956s	+ 1.384s	27
14	Romain Grosjean	Haas	1:13.994s	+ 1.422s	19
15	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	1:14.102s	+ 1.530s	22
16	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren	1:14.228s	+ 1.656s	22
17	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	1:14.392s	+ 1.820s	18
18	Lance Stroll	Williams	1:14.409s	+ 1.837s	25
19	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:14.883s	+ 2.311s	25
20	Pascal Wehrlein	Sauber	1:14.965s	+ 2.393s	25