Vettel quickest in laid-back FP3 in Montreal

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

 
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Gallery: All the pictures from Montreal

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