LIVE: Canadian Grand Prix Qualifying

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Follow live coverage of qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix with F1i's live commentary page.

While Lewis Hamilton had topped the timesheets in both practice sessions on Friday, it was Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel who put in the fastest time in FP3 on Saturday morning at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.

Vettel was the first man to go into the 1:13s this weekend and was a third of a second ahead of Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen, while Nico Rosberg put in a late effort as the rain started to fall to put Mercedes into third place ahead of Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen.

Hamilton was about to start a new flying lap when the session was red flagged because of a heavy crash for Kevin Magnussen in turn 7. While the Dane was a little shaken he was able to walk away from the incident, which is more than could be said about his Renault which was very much the worse for wear. Whether it can be repaired in time for qualifying is the big question.

FP3 was not restarted after the red flag, meaning Hamilton was out of position in the timesheets in fifth place ahead of Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull) and Carlos Sainz (Toro Rosso). McLaren's Fernando Alonso was eighth fastest ahead of Force India's Serio Perez and Williams' Felipe Massa, who had suffered his own heavy accident the previous day in FP1.

Jenson Button was 13th fastest this morning, after an oil leak cost him time on Friday and forced McLaren to take an engine change. Button was just ahead of Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat in FP3 after the young Russian had his own scare mid-session when he went off into an escape road as the forecast showers started to move in.

The weather could be a big factor again this afternoon in qualifying. If it rains it might very well result in a mixed-up grid, which is already looking to be a closer-than-usual pitched battle between the Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull drivers meaning that no one can take anything for granted this afternoon.

Join us for the start of qualifying which gets underway at 1pm local time (6pm BST). You can be sure that we will be bringing you all the news and information from trackside the minute it happens on F1i's live page.

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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.