Daniel Ricciardo held the smallest possible margin over Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen but a crash for the Dutchman was the highlight of final practice at the Monaco GP.

Slightly distracted by the slow-moving Renault of Carlos Sainz on the entry to the Swimming Pool complex, Verstappen would hit the inside wall at the second part which sent his car flying over the kerb and into the barrier on the outside.

Disappointed by giving his team a decent re-build to do over lunch, Ricciardo would rub salt into the 20-year-old's wound by then setting the fastest time when the session restarted with a 1m11.786s, just 0.001s faster.

Red Bull remain easily the team to beat though, with the Ferrari's of Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen a quarter of a second back in third and fourth respectively and struggling to match the RB14's in the technical final sector.

Mercedes sit as the third best team but are on the tail of the Scuderia with Lewis Hamilton fifth and Valtteri Bottas sixth.

In the midfield, Toro Rosso emerged as the leading team with Brendon Hartley and Pierre Gasly seventh and eighth, separated by just 0.009s with Sainz and Sergey Sirotkin continuing his strong weekend for Williams in P10.

The surprise strugglers in the final practice were McLaren with Stoffel Vandoorne 11th and Fernando Alonso 15th, it is possible they, along with the equally out of place Nico Hulkenberg in 14th, had their attempted best laps compromised by Verstappen's crash.

Force India continue to set just outside the Q3 and therefore, points places in P12 and P13 with Esteban Ocon marginally ahead of teammate Sergio Perez.

Charles Leclerc's first Monaco weekend is falling a little flat with the F2 champion only 17th, albeit ahead of both Haas cars, as Romain Grosjean remains very unhappy with the balance, and teammate Marcus Ericsson who brought up the order.