Lewis Hamilton involved in late crash drama as Charles Leclerc remains driver to beat

Lewis Hamilton suffered a late crash in final practice for the Monaco Grand Prix in which Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc will head into qualifying as favourite.

With just two minutes remaining, and Hamilton chasing Leclerc's leading time of 1:10.953s, the seven-time F1 champion hit a barrier at the top of the hill.

Hamilton appeared to be clearly caught out as he traversed the brow by two slower cars ahead of him, Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli and the Haas of Esteban Ocon. The stewards, though, decided no investigation was needed.

The 40-year-old smacked a barrier with the right-hand side of his car, losing the right-front tyre in the process and leaving his team with work to do to get his car ready for qualifying.

It brought out the red flags, leaving Leclerc out front by almost three-tenths of a second over Red Bull's Max Verstappen, whose best lap was set on the medium tyres earlier in the session as he was unable to get the softs to work.

The McLaren duo were hard on Verstappen's heels, with Lando Norris 0.014s adrift and Oscar Piastri a further 0.151s.

For Verstappen, at least, it was another remarkable Friday night turnaround for him and his team after their latest woes in practice on the opening day, with the Dutch driver considerably off the pace in a lowly 10th.

On the back of Leclerc's leading time from Friday of 1:11.355s, the early running was naturally on heavy fuel, as is always the case in FP3.

After 15 minutes, only seven drivers had posted times, led by Nico Hulkenberg for Stake with 1:13.916s, 0.023s clear of Hamilton. It was Hulkenberg, though, who made the first significant mistake of the day with a lock-up into the final corner, stopping inches away from a barrier.

Leclerc's first serious lap saw him shoot to the top of the timesheet with a 1:12.712s, although that was short-lived as Norris moved ahead by 0.365s.

Naturally, as the track ramped up and the run programmes of the teams continued, the times dropped, with Leclerc and Norris at the head of affairs as they exchanged the lead, the latter dropping the marker to 1:12.126s.

Needing to make improvements after another poor showing on Friday, Verstappen became the first driver to dip below the 72-second mark, posting a 1:11.961s, and significantly, on the medium tyres compared to Norris and Leclerc on the softs.

Verstappen improved further to 1:11.653s on a later lap, only for the soft-tyre-shod Leclerc to edge ahead by 0.121s, leaving the Dutch driver to sandwich the Ferrari duo as Hamilton had moved up to third, 0.344s shy of his team-mate.

At the halfway stage, Verstappen then set the best lap of the weekend to that point, lowering the benchmark to 1:11.233s, again on the medium Pirellis, indicating strong long-run pace for both him and Red Bull, and leaving Leclerc 0.224s down.

With 20 minutes remaining, it was time for the more significant qualifying simulations, and on his first soft-tyre run in the session, Verstappen was slower than his leading time by 0.064s.

Leclerc's maiden attempt saw him only improve by 0.013s as the rise in track temperature appeared to be playing its part.

Piastri, however, at least improved significantly to jump up to second, but still 0.172s shy of Verstappen.

With five minutes remaining, there was finally a purple time on the board again, on this occasion from Hamilton in the first sector, only for him to abort his lap on the run down to the swimming pool complex after encountering a slow Gabriel Bortoleto.

It was at that point that Leclerc upped the ante, delivering his sub-71-second lap to leave Verstappen 0.280s adrift before Hamilton brought proceedings to a premature end.

Behind the McLarens, Hamilton finished fifth, followed by the Williams of Alex Albon, whilst Racing Bulls' Liam Lawson again fared strongly after his superb display on Friday. The New Zealander found himself in a Williams sandwich as Carlos Sainz was eighth.

Red Bull's Yuki Tsunoda and Antonelli rounded out the top 10, the latter over a second back. 

Franco Colapinto was again the slowest in his Alpine, and faces a likely penalty for a red-flag infringement following the Hamilton crash.

Haas driver Oliver Bearman was handed a 10-place penalty on Friday for overtaking Sainz in a red-flag situation after Piastri lost his front wing in FP2.