Verstappen beats Hamilton to lead final Mexican GP practice

Max Verstappen ended practice for the Mexican Grand Prix at the top of the timesheets after edging out Formula 1 world championship leader Lewis Hamilton in a closely-fought session between the three leading teams.

Just 0.117 seconds separated Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari's lead drivers through FP3 on Saturday morning at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, with Verstappen pulling clear to head into qualifying on the front foot.

A fastest lap of 1:17.113 was enough to give Verstappen by just 0.075 seconds from Hamilton, with Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel finishing a further 0.04 seconds back in third place.

Valtteri Bottas finished just behind in the second Mercedes, taking P4 despite being just 0.170 seconds behind Verstappen, with Daniel Ricciardo and Kimi Raikkonen following in fifth and sixth. Ricciardo's hopes of finishing any higher up the order were dashed when he parked his car up in the garage after completing just 10 laps in a bid to save engine mileage on his Red Bull car.

Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon led the way in the midfield fight for Force India, taking P7 and P8 respectively, while the Renault duo of Carlos Sainz Jr. and Nico Hulkenberg followed in P9 and P10.

The session was relatively free of incidents, with one stoppage occurring early on when Pierre Gasly suffered an engine issue as his difficult race weekend continued. The Toro Rosso driver will go into qualifying having completed just 12 laps in total, none of which have been at an optimum pace.