Canadian GP practice: Max Verstappen takes clean sweep of sessions

Verstappen, who was quickest in both Friday practice sessions too, unleashed a 1m11.599s on hypersoft tyres with 13 minutes remaining to top the timesheet.

That beat Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel by 0.049s, despite none of Verstappen's three sectors being the fastest overall.

World championship leader Lewis Hamilton could only manage the fourth fastest time, as Mercedes seemingly failed to master its balance on the hypersoft - ending up a tenth away from Verstappen.

Ferrari went straight for the hypersoft tyre from the start of the session, with Kimi Raikkonen setting the early pace on a 1m12.359s before Vettel usurped him with a 1m12.235s on his seventh lap on those tyres.

Mercedes started on ultrasofts, with Hamilton building up to a 1m12.598s, and Valtteri Bottas on a 1m12.666s.

Hamilton worked his way up to second, only 0.066s off Vettel's hypersoft benchmark at that point, on his ninth lap.

Red Bull followed the Mercedes approach. Daniel Ricciardo worked down to 1m12.838s on ultrasofts while Verstappen shot straight to third on 1m12.552s before improving by 0.117s.

Having encountered some sensor issues, Ricciardo then switched to the hypersoft but had to run wide passing a Williams and could only manage fifth.

Vettel took another set of hypersofts, improving to 1m12.300s despite catching a Sauber at the chicane. On his second lap, he lowered the first-place bar to 1m11.648s.

Ferrari identified an issue on Raikkonen's car, which required some feverish mid-session work at the rear of it, but he rejoined to set 1m11.763s on hypersofts. He then got within 0.002s of Vettel's time with 1m11.650s, and that would stand to be the third-fastest time as Verstappen jumped both Ferraris.

Neither Hamilton nor Bottas used the hypersofts on Friday, thanks to having only five sets available for the weekend. Bottas managed 1m12.357s on his first lap on the rubber with 20 minutes remaining, and improved later to 1m12.255s as he ended the session sixth.

Hamilton took two warm-up laps on his hypersofts before recording a 1m11.706s that was 0.058s off the pace at the time.

He struggled to improve after that, and ended the session fourth ahead of Ricciardo and Bottas - who were both over half a second off the leading pace.

Sergio Perez was best of the rest for Force India, ahead of Renault's Nico Hulkenberg, the Haas of Romain Grosjean and McLaren's Stoffel Vandoorne.

Vandoorne suffered a huge lock-up at Turn 3 early in the session, and was forced to take a trip down the escape road and perform a five-point turn to rejoin.

Esteban Ocon was 11th for Force India, followed by Toro Rosso's Brendon Hartley.

Hartley had a scare when he happened across a touring Mercedes at the chicane, and was forced to straightline. He followed that up with a big lock-up into Turn 1, which he also cut.

Fernando Alonso was only 13th fastest for McLaren, two tenths off Vandoorne, with Carlos Sainz Jr 14th, four tenths off Renault team-mate Hulkenberg and admitting on the radio that he "struggled with everything".

FP3 times