Vettel tops curtailed FP3 after Magnussen crash

Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel put himself top of the time sheets in FP3 with a lap of 1:13.919s, the fastest of the weekend so far, in a session that was curtailed by a red flag following a heavy crash for Renault's Kevin Magnussen who went into the wall as light rain started to pick up.

Drivers and teams had wasted no time to get out on track as rain had been indicated on the long-range forecasts, meaning it was a busy start to the session. Despite having topped both of Friday's free practice sessions at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton found himself struggling on Saturday morning to match the early pace of the two Red Bull Racing drivers Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo, despite the fact that Verstappen was the only driver not to run the ultrasoft tyres for his first set of flying laps.

In the end, it was Vettel that finally managed to prise the young Dutchman's grip from the top spot a third of the way into the one hour session with a lap time of 1:14.068s, 0.242s faster than Verstappen with Hamilton a further two hundredths of a second further back.

The expected light rain showers started to pick up midway through the session, catching out Daniil Kvyat who ending up taking to the short run-off escape road at Turn 3. Fortunately he was able to hold the Toro Rosso away from making any harmful contact with the barriers and he was quickly back underway.

The start of the rain fall also coincided with Verstappen returning to the track with his first run on ultrasofts. Despite the spots of rain Verstappen was still able to shave a tenth off his earlier time, but that wasn't enough to match Vettel who countered and found even more time on his next run to become the first man into the 1:13s, ultimately pipping Verstappen by almost a third of a second (0.331s).

The rain appeared to be most probelmatic at Turn 1 - which saw Vettel, Hamilton and Renault's Kevin Magnussen among those running wide - and at the final chicane, with several drivers including Nico Rosberg and Haas F1's Romain Grosjean having to cut the corner as a result of the slippery conditions and also because of encountering traffic at just the wrong moment.

After a brief pause in track action, the cars were coming back out for their final runs when Magnussen made heavy impact with the outside wall at Turn 7 after the rear of his car stepped out without warning. The accident brought out the red flag while the heavily damaged Renault was recovered. Magnussen himself was able to get out of the wrecked car and make his way to the medical transport.

With marshalls examining the wall for damage and the rain picking up, race control decided not to restart the session leaving Vettel on top ahead of Verstappen. A late run by Nico Rosberg saw Mercedes capture third place ahead of Vettel's team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, but Hamilton was unable to find a similar opportunity to put in a late run on ultrasofts and finished the session in fifth ahead of Ricciardo and Toro Rosso's Carlos Sainz.

The top ten was rounded out by McLaren's Fernando Alonso, Force India's Sergio Perez and the Williams of Felipe Massa, who himself had a heavy crash at Turn 1 in Friday morning's FP1.