Verstappen fastest as Mercedes struggle in crash-strewn final practice

The Red Bull driver shot to the top of the timesheets in the closing minutes of FP3 to pip long-time pacesetter Carlos Sainz by just 0.047s as Ferrari continued its promising start to the weekend.

Home hero Charles Leclerc was two-tenths adrift in the second Ferrari ahead of Valtteri Bottas, who was nearly half a second off the pace as the lead Mercedes.

His teammate, seven-time world champion Hamilton, ended a difficult practice session seven-tenths down in seventh place heading into the most important qualifying session of the season.

Sergio Perez was fifth for Red Bull, while Lando Norris also put his Gulf-liveried McLaren ahead of Hamilton to take sixth in FP3.

Kimi Raikkonen, Pierre Gasly and Sebastian Vettel completed the top 10 for Alfa Romeo, AlphaTauri and Aston Martin in a session that was twice red-flagged for incidents.

Williams driver Nicholas Latifi hit the wall coming out of the swimming pool chicane with around 15 minutes remaining, before F1 rookie Mick Schumacher suffered a heavy shunt at the exit of Casino Square that wrecked his Haas car.

Both drivers have left their respective teams with a huge repair job and facing a race against time to fix their cars in time to take part in qualifying in two hours’ time.

McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo had another tricky session on his way to 13th, while Alpine struggled for pace as Fernando Alonso took a lowly P15 and Esteban Ocon finished slowest of all.

Click here for full results from final practice at the 2021 Monaco Grand Prix.