Canadian GP: Rosberg on top in FP3, Nasr crashes heavily

The session was red flagged twice. The first incident came with 20 minutes remaining, when Sauber's Felipe Nasr suffered a huge accident on the backstraight – caused when he weaved too much attempting to generate heat into his tyres.

Nasr’s car slammed head-on into an unprotected concrete wall at high speed, but he was able to walk away from his shattered car.

The session had already started with a bang when Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari whacked the new sausage kerb that’s been installed at the final chicane, launching him into the air.

After an early Ferrari 1-2, Nico Rosberg recorded a swift 1m16.783s on fresh soft tyres, then straightlined the Turn 3/4 chicane.

Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen then eclipsed the fastest time with 1m16.761s, also set on the soft, as teammate Vettel languished in seventh and reported MGU-K issues.

Romain Grosjean’s Lotus got to within 0.01s of Rosberg’s time, just before the red flag for Nasr’s shunt.

Hamilton struggles

Also struggling in this stage was Hamilton, who abandoned his first run on softs to check over his car, after only setting the slowest time of the session before the red flag.

Hamilton was the first car out on track at the restart, as the majority of the field opted for the supersoft in the final 10 minutes. He immediately outbraked himself at Turn 1 on his first flying lap.

With no such trouble, Rosberg slammed in a 1m15.660s, as Raikkonen lowered his best to 1m16.233s.

Grosjean was third, ahead of Valtteri Bottas, Sergio Perez and Daniil Kvyat.

Jenson Button’s McLaren ground to a halt at Turn 7 with six minutes on the clock, causing a second red flag that ended the session early and leaves many unanswered questions ahead of qualifying.

McLaren chief Eric Boullier has confirmed it's an engine problem, that will force Button to miss qualifying.

Teammate Fernando Alonso needed an engine change and only managed three laps.

In other incidents, Daniel Ricciardo went off at Turn 1, and complained: “I’ve got ****-all grip.”