Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRace weekend

Rosberg fastest as Sainz crash cuts FP3 short

Nico Rosberg set the fastest time of final practice for the Russian Grand Prix as a heavy crash for Carlos Sainz ended the session prematurely.

With 25 minutes still to run, Sainz went off at Turn 13 - a tight right hander at the end of a DRS zone - with his car becoming embedded below the tecpro barrier. The session was red flagged with the medical car responding to the incident and was not restarted while Sainz was extricated from his car.

The FIA confirmed Sainz was conscious and TV pictures showed him giving the thumbs up from a stretcher as he was being loaded in to the back of an ambulance.

Sainz's crash came following a very busy start to the session as teams finally got some dry running after rain on Friday. The Williams pair of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa had set the early pace before Rosberg set the benchmark with a 1:38.561 on the supersoft tyre.

Bottas ended the session second fastest, 0.726s slower than Rosberg, with Lewis Hamilton 0.1s further back in third place. Hamilton's first timed lap on supersofts was ruined by a big lock-up in to Turn 2, causing him to run wide and flat-spotting his front tyres.

Sergio Perez was fourth ahead of Massa and Nico Hulkenberg, with Mercedes-powered cars dominating the top of the timing screens. The first non-Mercedes car was actually a Honda, with Jenson Button seventh for McLaren ahead of Pastor Maldonado, Fernando Alonso and Felipe Nasr.

The two Ferrari drivers had yet to set representative times on the supersoft tyre when the session was halted having sat in the garage for the opening 14 minutes. The lack of dry running means teams will be left with little data to prepare their cars for qualifying.

Sainz's Toro Rosso team-mate Max Verstappen also had an eventful session, spinning at the final corner and having to recover to the inside of the track having initially stopped on the exit kerb. A number of other drivers ran wide at various corners as grid levels remained low.

Big Sainz crash halts FP3 in Sochi

AS IT HAPPENED: Russian Grand Prix FP3

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Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
01	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:38.561	15
02	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:39.287	17
03	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:39.363	13
04	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:39.616	14
05	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:39.875	14
06	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:39.917	14
07	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:40.581	12
08	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus	1:40.767	13
09	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:41.200	11
10	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	1:41.229	14
11	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull	1:41.358	15
12	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:42.297	11
13	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	1:42.371	14
14	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:42.450	14
15	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:42.683	19
16	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:42.686	11
17	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:43.089	16
18	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:43.347	14
19	Roberto Merhi	Manor	1:46.767	19
20	Will Stevens	Manor	1:47.249	18

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.