Montréal, FP3: Verstappen quickest again in final practice

Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen made it a clean sweep of practice sessions in Montreal, edging Sebastian Vettel by just under five hundredths of a second, with the German’s Ferrari team-mate Kimi Räikkönen two thousandths of a second further back.

Verstappen, who had beaten Räikkönen by a tenth of a second in yesterday’s second practice session after pipping Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton on Friday morning, jumped to the top of the final practice time sheet with 13 minutes to go. The Dutchman, who had run ultrasoft tyres early in the session, bolted on pink-banded hypersoft Pirelli tyres to set a time of 1m11.599s. That left him 0.049s ahead of Vettel as the flag fell.

Drivers’ championship leader Lewis Hamilton finished fourth in the session after Mercedes used hypersoft tyres for the first time this weekend, as both its driver only selected five sets of the compound for the race weekend. The Briton set a best time of 1:11.706 as the top four were covered by just over a tenth of a second.

Daniel Ricciardo was fifth in the second Red Bull. Like Verstappen, the Monaco Grand Prix winner spent the early part of the session on ultrasoft tyres before moving to the hypersofts. His second lap on the softest tyres on offer this weekend yielded a time of 1:12.153 but after hitting that mark the Australian stayed on the set pushing them for a long stint until the chequered flag was shown. He ended the hour over half a second adrift of his team-mate.

Valtteri Bottas finished the session in sixth place as he took to the hypersofts for the first time and the Finn set a best time of 1:12.225 to sit over six tenths behind Verstappen at the end of the session.

He was almost seven tenths of a second clear of Sergio Perez who took best-of-the-rest honours for Force India, ahead of Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg, the Haas of Romain Grosjean and McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne. Esteban Ocon finished in P11 for Force India, ahead of Brendon Hartley who made good used of an upgraded Honda engine to set a best time of 1:13.076.