(Mercedes AMG F1 Team)
Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time of the final free practice session ahead of this afternoon's qualifying session for Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix. The 2008 world champion ended the session with a 1m 16.610s finishing just four tenths of a second ahead of the Williams of Felipe Massa who showed that the FW36 is a car to watch out for in qualifying.
Championship leader Nico Rosberg was third fastest, and like his team mate set his fastest time of the morning on Pirelli's soft tyre compound. The German was 0.510s behind Hamilton. Fernando Alonso, who had a small off track excursion in the Ferrari was fourth fastest showing that the Italian team have made progress with their car after bringing upgrades for this Grand Prix.
Red Bull Racing Daniel Ricciardo was fifth fastest 0.894s off Hamilton's pace finishing the session just ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in the second Ferrari. Valtteri Bottas was 7th fastest in the second Williams, unable to match the pace set by his team mate so it will be interesting to see what he can do in qualifying this afternoon.
It was a great session for the Toro Rosso pair as Daniil Kvyat finished the session in 8th place while Jean Eric Vergne was 9th fastest finishing the session ahead of reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel who rounded out the top ten following a problem with the brake pedal in his RB10.
Nico Hulkenberg put in a strong performance for the Sahara Force India F1 Team and was unlucky to miss out on the top ten finishing in eleventh place just ahead of Kevin Magnussen who, spun his car going into turn but managed to get going again. The Dane finished the session in 12th place ahead of the Lotus of Romain Grosjean who was 1.5s off the pace in 13th place but has seen a marked improvement in the performance of the E22.
Sergio Perez finished the morning off in 14th place just ahead of Pastor Maldonado in the second Lotus in 15th place.
It was a very disappointing session for McLaren's Jenson Button as the 2009 world champion finished the session down in 16th place so he will be hoping for a big improvement for qualifying.
Adrian Sutil was 17th for the Sauber F1 Team, however it wasn't a smooth session for the Swiss based outfit as Esteban Gutieerez brought out the red flag's 15 minute's into the session after crashing heavily. Fortunately the Mexican was unhurt however his C33 will require extensive repairs prior to the start of qualifying as a result he ended the session right at the bottom of the times.
Jules Bianchi came out on top in the battle of the 'new team's' and ended the session ahead of his Marussia team mate Max Chilton in 18th place with Chilton 19th.
At Caterham Marcus Ericsson finished ahead of his team mate Kamui Kobayashi, the Japanese driver stopped out on track shortly before the end of the session however that stoppage just required the yellow flags.
Heading into qualifying it looks like the Williams team could potentially take the fight the Mercedes pair of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. The session gets underway from 6PM (Irish time) and is live on Sky Sports F1 HD from 5PM and on BBC One HD also from 5PM.
© Ben Johnston 2014
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