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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.

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

 
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Gallery: All the pictures from Montreal

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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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