Sainz crash stops final practice early

With 22 minutes of the hour-long session remaining Sainz ploughed his Toro Rosso deep into a barrier at Turn 13, the culmination of one of the fastest parts of the Sochi Autodrom circuit.

The Spaniard's car lost control under braking for Turn 13, slamming into the outside concrete wall before heading straight on into the Tecpro barrier at the end of the run-off area.

Due to a loss of power on the car there was also no communication available from pit to driver, preventing the team from getting an update on Sainz's condition.

The FIA took the decision not to restart the session as marshals and medics continued to attend to Sainz, while there were initially no replays of the shunt.

Sainz was eventually removed from his car, placed on a stretcher and into an awaiting ambulance, the 21-year-old appearing to give a wave of his hand and a thumbs-up in the process.

Following what were two heavily disrupted Friday sessions, the initial 45 minutes of FP3 prior to the accident were hectic.

It meant that from the off there was a mix of the tyre compounds used, with some drivers taking the super-soft tyres immediately.

Temperatures, however, were hardly ideal, with the track at just 22 degrees and air flitting between 15 and 16 degrees, ensuring for all concerned that getting heat into the tyres would pose a problem.

Valtteri Bottas initially led the way on softs with a lap of 1m42.829s, the Finn then consistently improving on his run before lowering the benchmark to 1:40.617s.

Twenty minutes into the session Williams team-mate Felipe Massa was Bottas's closest rival, 0.355s off the pace, with the rest of the field clearly running higher fuel loads as Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel was third, but just over two seconds back.

Switching to the supersofts, Bottas shaved just over three tenths of a second off his best time with a lap of 1m40.275s, before Nico Rosberg in his Mercedes became the first to dip below 100 seconds with a 1m38.941s on super-softs.

Bottas responded by posting faster times in the first two sectors, only to blot his copybook with an error in the final sector and finish three tenths of a second off the pace.

Rosberg then went quicker again with a lap of 1m38.561s before a lock up from Lewis Hamilton in sector one on his maiden super-soft run compromised his lap, with the reigning champion finishing 0.802s down on his team-mate.

Outside of the top three of Rosberg, Bottas and Hamilton, Force India's Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg finished fourth and sixth quickest, sandwiching Massa.

McLaren duo Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso were seventh and ninth, with Pastor Maldonado eighth, and Felipe Nasr 10th, 2.668s back.

Ferrari duo Kimi Raikkonen and Vettel finished 12th and 16th, the latter just over four seconds down.