Monaco GP: Rosberg blitzes messy final practice

Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg completed his clean sweep of Monaco Grand Prix practice session top spots by leading a crash-strewn hour on Saturday morning.

The German's 1m14.378s lap was nearly seven tenths of a second clear of the rest of the field, although the latter part of the session was interrupted by crashes for Felipe Massa, Romain Grosjean and Adrian Sutil, causing two red flags.

Massa's accident was the first and the biggest.

He locked up his Ferrari's front wheels at the start of the Sainte Devote braking area, slamming into the barriers on the left-hand side approaching the corner before going into the wall on the outside of the turn. The Brazilian got out unhurt.

Shortly after the restart, Sutil lost control of his Force India through Massenet, sliding sideways into the wall.

That did not require a stoppage to clear up, and in the gap between incidents that followed, Grosjean was one of the few to get a quick time in, jumping to second.

But on his final run the Lotus driver braked too late into Sainte Devote after possibly being distracted by Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes rejoining from the pits.

Grosjean slid sideways into the barriers in a repeat of his Thursday crash.

With only a minute of the session remaining, the red flag brought the morning to a close.

Rosberg managed to get a sublime lap in between the shunts, moving comfortably clear of the field despite clouting the barrier at Portier as he got his Mercedes sideways out of the corner.

Grosjean retained second, ahead of Sebastian Vettel - who had been quickest before the field switched to super-softs, but encountered traffic on a potentially quick late run.

Fernando Alonso's Ferrari and Hamilton completed the top five.

Kimi Raikkonen had a harmless trip down the Mirabeau escape road before taking sixth, followed by Mark Webber, Paul di Resta, Pastor Maldonado and Nico Hulkenberg.

Pos Driver                Team                  Time        Gap         Laps
 1. Nico Rosberg          Mercedes              1m14.378s               22
 2. Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault         1m15.039s   + 0.661s    13
 3. Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      1m15.261s   + 0.883s    17
 4. Fernando Alonso       Ferrari               1m15.286s   + 0.908s    17
 5. Lewis Hamilton        Mercedes              1m15.311s   + 0.933s    20
 6. Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault         1m15.380s   + 1.002s    19
 7. Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault      1m15.550s   + 1.172s    20
 8. Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes  1m15.594s   + 1.216s    17
 9. Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault      1m15.861s   + 1.483s    15
10. Nico Hulkenberg       Sauber-Ferrari        1m15.926s   + 1.548s    25
11. Sergio Perez          McLaren-Mercedes      1m15.958s   + 1.580s    23
12. Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes      1m15.976s   + 1.598s    19
13. Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m15.976s   + 1.598s    21
14. Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m16.060s   + 1.682s    16
15. Adrian Sutil          Force India-Mercedes  1m16.068s   + 1.690s    12
16. Felipe Massa          Ferrari               1m16.105s   + 1.727s    8
17. Esteban Gutierrez     Sauber-Ferrari        1m16.427s   + 2.049s    26
18. Valtteri Bottas       Williams-Renault      1m16.933s   + 2.555s    17
19. Charles Pic           Caterham-Renault      1m17.902s   + 3.524s    20
20. Giedo van der Garde   Caterham-Renault      1m18.102s   + 3.724s    20
21. Jules Bianchi         Marussia-Cosworth     1m18.706s   + 4.328s    22
22. Max Chilton           Marussia-Cosworth     1m19.228s   + 4.850s    22