Verstappen quickest as Hamilton crashes in Monaco FP3

Max Verstappen set the pace in the final practice session for the Monaco Grand Prix ahead of Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll.

The Red Bull driver overcame his setup problems from Friday and set the quickest time of a 1:12.776s, which was 0.073s faster than Perez.

The best lap from Stroll came towards the end of the session, when the Aston Martin driver improved to go just 0.166s off the pace of Verstappen.

Perez set the early pace in the session on the Soft tyre, before a lot of activity on track led to numerous times being improved as the track evolved.

Verstappen initially beat the benchmark by Perez, before Alonso put in a quicker effort on his first timed Soft run. The Spaniard's best effort later put him down to P10 towards the end of the session, showing how much the gap levels were changing throughout the session.

Any attempt to improve his was hampered after Lewis Hamilton crashed at Mirabeau, hitting the barrier after losing the rear on corner entry. The shunt brought out the red flag and ended the session prematurely.

Leclerc struggles with car setup

While Carlos Sainz managed to put his FP2 crash behind him and get back to the pace, teammate Charles Leclerc complained of having to lift the throttle through the Swimming Pool section due to car setup, which was causing him to lose half a second to Verstappen in lap time.

Leclerc ultimately ended the session seventh quickest, having been unable to improve towards the end of the session.

Russell claimed he made a "hefty hit of the wall" over team radio in the final sector and returned to the pits after his runs. The Mercedes driver was 11th quickest and a second off the pace, and two tenths off Hamilton.

Esteban Ocon suffered early problems when his Alpine stopped on track in the tunnel, before he did a 'system reset' and was able to get back underway and limp back to the pits. Alpine sorted the problems and he promptly managed to get back into the top ten with his times.

A brief Virtual Safety Car also came out for Kevin Magnussen towards the end of the session, who lost power coming out of the Lowes Hairpin. The Haas driver had already took to the escape road at Sainte Devote on his lap and had to reverse back onto the the track.