Canada – Free Practice 3: Ferrari out in front, Verstappen in ambush

After a Friday contested between Ferrari and Mercedes, this final practice session was supposed to clarify the situation a little more in Montreal for the Canadian Grand Prix.

These are, moreover, the Ferraris of Räikkönen, who set the best time in the second free practice session, and Sebastian Vettel who first hit the track for a simple installation lap, followed by the Haas cars of Grosjean and Magnussen and Fernando Alonso in the McLaren.

After 12 minutes of testing, only two drivers have recorded a timed lap. Daniel Ricciardo in the Red Bull Renault sets the first timed benchmark of Saturday morning with a lap completed in 1:16.784 on ultra-soft tires. A few seconds later, it’s Jolyon Palmer’s Renault that ranks behind the Australian driver.

The Ferrari drivers, however, return to the track at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve: Vettel takes the lead on his first attempt before improving his own mark a lap later, clocking in at 1:13.766. Meanwhile, the hierarchy quickly changes between Hamilton, Räikkönen, Bottas, and Ricciardo who are competing for positions 2 to 5. The Mercedes drivers are not inclined to respond tit for tat to the red cars, opting only for red-sidewall super soft tires. The Silver Arrows are then relegated to 5 and 9 tenths of a second respectively for Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas compared to Vettel’s best time of 1:13.015.

Max Verstappen still manages to bring his Red Bull to 3rd place, thus interspersing himself between the Mercedes drivers, nearly 0.3 seconds ahead of his teammate Ricciardo.

Halfway through the session, Vettel returns to the track, fitted with a new set of purple-walled tires, while his Finnish teammate clocks a new time just 0.002 seconds behind the four-time German world champion. A few minutes later, Vettel improves and pushes the Finnish world champion back by 0.3 seconds… Until Iceman makes another attempt and closes the gap to less than 0.2 seconds behind his Ferrari teammate. But the battle at the top continues with yet another fastest lap in this session for Vettel in 1:12.572, 0.3 s. ahead of Räikkönen.

1:12.572 for VET 🔥

0.240 quicker than HAM’s pole lap from 2016 in 🇨🇦

Worth a quick wave 👋#CanadianGP #FP3 pic.twitter.com/xCmMuhMZ8i

— Formula 1 (@F1) 10 juin 2017

Further down the timesheet, the French drivers are showing their best by clearly outperforming their respective teammates, with Grosjean in 11th place while Magnussen is only 18th, Ocon in 16th, four-tenths of a second ahead of the Mexican Sergio Pérez.

With 20 minutes remaining, the Mercedes team tries to reclaim the track, but Hamilton slips on his first attempt with purple sidewall tires. He has to make three attempts before securing a clear timed lap, trailing Vettel by 0.5 seconds, before reducing the gap to just over 3 tenths a few minutes later, still ahead of his teammate Bottas.

The Red Bulls, for their part, are lying in wait as evidenced by the time set by Dutchman Verstappen, a few tenths of a second behind Bottas’s Mercedes, with a time set 10 minutes before the end of the session. Verstappen pushed in the very last minutes to move ahead of Bottas into 4th position, only 0.039 seconds behind Hamilton. Ricciardo, meanwhile, slowly slipped down the rankings to 8th position, nearly 1 second behind the fastest time of the session set by Sebastian Vettel, a fastest time that hasn’t broken the track record that still belongs, for a few more hours at least, to Ralf Schumacher.

PROVISIONAL CLASSIFICATION (END OF FP3)

Vettel shows his mettle 💪

Only a tenth of a second between P2 and P4 ⏱️#CanadianGP 🇨🇦 #FP3 pic.twitter.com/3kV8xgXer7

— Formula 1 (@F1) 10 juin 2017