Max Verstappen narrowly beat Lewis Hamilton by less than a tenth of a second in the third and final practice before qualifying in Mexico with a 1m17.113s.
The young Dutchman carried through his Friday form into Saturday’s session bringing his Red Bull team fully into contention ahead of qualifying. Lewis Hamilton lost out on top spot for the third time across the weekend and the world championship leader reported loss of power late in the session.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel ended the session third just behind Hamilton proving there is little to separate the top teams in Mexico, Valtteri Bottas led for the majority of the session but did fall back late on as the others did complete their qualifying simulations but is not far away from the pace of his team-mate.
Daniel Ricciardo finished fifth in the session but did not complete as much mileage in the session as the Red Bull team were trying to save as much of the power unit as possible. Kimi Raikkonen in the other Ferrari had a substantial gap to the others around him but did not appear to struggle in the session.
A low grip surface caused trouble for some of the midfield runners as Esteban Ocon and both Renault’s of Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz all locked up at Turn 1, all three drivers had to take to the grass thanks to the new orange kerbs which force the drivers to go to the exit of Turn 3.
Brendan Hartley in only his second weekend of Formula 1 for Toro Rosso ended the session in a solid eleventh place, his team-mate Pierre Gasly suffered a power unit problem in the opening minutes of the session, a puff of smoke was seen coming from the back of his STR13 into Turn 12 and put pay to the Frenchman’s session having had very little running already.
Williams’ Lance Stroll nearly copied Romain Grosjean’s spin from FP2 late in the session after getting wide on the exit of Mansell corner, forcing the teenager completely off the track and losing a lot of time ending the session down in 13th.
Twitter: INITIAL CLASSIFICATION (END OF FP3)
The topare separated by just 0.248 seconds
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