Nico Rosberg took the honor for the fastest time in a truncated 3rd free practice session for the Canadian Grand Prix.

With two red flags in the session Nico Rosberg squeezed in his fastest lap of the session on the option tyres after the first red flag which was caused by Sauber’s Felipe Nasr.

Nasr lost the back of the car after weaving down the back straight to try and put some heat into his tyres. The rear of the car stepped out and after correcting it he went straight on into the wall. The session was restarted with 12 minutes remaining. A short while later with just 7 minutes left in the session, McLaren’s Jenson Button stopped on the track at the exit of Turn 7. Before stopping on the track, Button was heard on the radio telling his team that something was wrong. “Massive loss of power, like the ERS isn’t working,” said Button. “I think we’ve got a bigger problem. I’ll stop the car.” The yellow flags were initially brought out and a few seconds later the red flag came out. The track marshals could not recover the car in time and the clock ran down to the end of the session.

When the session was restarted with after the first red flag the drivers headed out immediately and started their qualifying simulations. Rosberg set a time of 1:15.660 which was 0.573s faster than 2nd fastest man, Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen who managed a 1:16.233. Romain Grosjean was 3rd fastest for Lotus with a 1:16.772. Valtteri Bottas was 4th fastest for Williams setting a 1:16.914, 1.254s off Rosberg’s time. Sergio Perez in the Force India was 5th fastest.

Finishing 6th fastest was Daniil Kvyat for Red Bull ahead of Felipe Massa in 7th. Sebastian Vettel, who was on a timed lap at the time Button stopped on track, could not complete his lap and had to settle for 8th fastest. Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz finished 9th ahead of Pastor Maldonado in the second Lotus in 10th.

Marcus Ericsson, Nico Hulkenberg and Daniel Ricciardo finished 11th. 12th, and 13 respectively with Felipe Nasr setting the 14th fastest time before crashing out. Button ended his session in 15th with Max Verstappen in 16th.

Will Stevens finished higher up that usual for Manor in 17th with Fernando Alonso in 18th. Alonso had to undergo an engine change before the session had begun and sat out most of the session while the McLaren mechanics worked on his car. Roberto Merhi was 19th fastest.

Lewis Hamilton seemed to struggle in the session and was unable to set a representative time in the session. He had some concerns with brake balance earlier in the session and didnt seem to get on top of the issue. He was also caught out by the two red flags when setting timed laps.

With the session being a mixed bag it is a little difficult to gauge absolute pace of all the runners. We will only get a sense for it in qualifying.