Verstappen tops Monaco final practice as Schumacher crashes

Mick Schumacher smashed up his Haas car in Monaco Grand Prix third practice on Saturday forcing the session to be red-flagged with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen topping the timesheets.

Schumacher, whose father Michael was a five-time Monaco winner, was unhurt in the accident which gave his team’s mechanics an unwelcome battle against the clock to get his car repaired in time for qualifying at 1300GMT.

Red Bull’s Verstappen was 0.047sec quicker than the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz with Charles Leclerc in the other Ferrari third to follow up their encouraging showing in Thursday practice.

Mercedes world champion Lewis Hamilton is down in seventh, 0.726s off Verstappen, not having had the chance to put in a fast lap before the session-ending crash.

Hamilton leads Verstappen by 14 points in the drivers’ standings going into this iconic fifth leg of the season.

With the tight unforgiving narrow street circuit making overtaking difficult—the 2003 race was infamous for not having one car pass another in the entire race—a good qualifying performance is essential.

Schumacher meanwhile will not forget his first Monaco weekend in a hurry for all the wrong reasons after oversteering coming out of Casino Square to smash into the barriers, rippin goff his car’s entire rear leftwing.

Schumacher, who is in his first season in Formula One, walked away unscathed as the session was stopped with under two minutes remaining.