Verstappen completes Mexico practice sweep in damp FP3

Max Verstappen completed a clean sweep of practice for the Mexican Grand Prix by topping FP3 for Red Bull in a damp final session at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on Saturday morning, beating Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton.

Overnight rain left the track damp for the starting of final practice, prompting drivers to head out for installation laps on a mix of Intermediate and Wet tyres. Fearing more rain later in the weekend, all of the teams opted to remain in the pits in order to avoid using up their allocated tyres, meaning no times were set until more than half of the session had passed.

Fernando Alonso was the first driver to explore the track on slick tyres, fitting Hypersofts, with his trouble-free lap prompting the rest of the field follow suit and venture out on-track.

Drivers found more and more time as the session wore on, but it was Verstappen, who topped both FP1 and FP2 on Friday, that managed to go fastest once again, turning in a best lap of 1m16.284s.

The time saw Verstappen edge out championship leader Hamilton by 0.254 seconds, with the Mercedes driver closing on the benchmark time after a tough Friday saw him finish more than a second adrift.

Mercedes' morning was not without a scare, though, as Valtteri Bottas came to a stop in the stadium section with 15 minutes remaining in the session, smoke spewing from the rear of his W09 car. Bottas reported a hydraulics failure that had forced him to stop, leaving Mercedes with work to do to resolve the issue ahead of qualifying. The Finn ended the session P19 overall.

Sebastian Vettel managed to take third place for Ferrari ahead of Daniel Ricciardo in the second Red Bull, three-quarters of a second off his teammate's leading time. Kimi Raikkonen followed in P5, with his replacement at Ferrari for 2019, Charles Leclerc, taking sixth for Sauber.

Carlos Sainz Jr. continued his string of top-10 finishes in practice by taking seventh for Renault ahead of Pierre Gasly, who wound up eighth. Marcus Ericsson took ninth in the second Sauber ahead of Renault's Nico Hulkenberg in P10.

Force India drivers Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez finished 11th and 12th respectively ahead of Haas' Romain Grosjean, who struggled with his car through the opening complex of corners, reporting that it was "bouncing." Grosjean also suffered an off-track moment at Turn 1, keeping his car out of the wall after careering across the slippery grass.

McLaren drivers Stoffel Vandoorne and Fernando Alonso followed in 14th and 15th ahead of Toro Rosso's Brendon Hartley, with the Williams duo of Sergey Sirotkin and Lance Stroll taking 17th and 18th respectively. Behind Bottas was Haas' Kevin Magnussen, who completed just one lap after the team was forced to change the intercooler on his car during the session.

Qualifying for the Mexican Grand Prix gets underway at 1pm local time (7pm BST).