Max Verstappen managed a flawless run in practice as he set the pace and held off the impressive Williams of Alex Albon and his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez in the third and final practice session for the Mexico City Grand Prix.
Verstappen appeared to be stuck at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on Friday, and while it was George Russell who was quickest after the first few runs on soft tires, three-time world champion Verstappen moved back to the lead as teams drained fuel and settled embarked on a fast ride proper qualification simulation.
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He managed a time of 1:17.887 minutes, just 0.070 seconds faster than Albon, but immediately announced on the team radio that he had encountered a lot of traffic on his fast lap – suggesting that he could have gone faster.
Albon was the star, however, as he repeated the outstanding speed he showed in FP1 with another blistering lap, supporting the theory that Williams could be a real shock package this weekend.
Home favorite Perez was in full contention in third place, 0.139 seconds behind, in bright Mexican sunshine and on a track that became progressively worse over the course of the hour-long session as the rubber weakened after light rain overnight.
Russell was the leading Mercedes in fourth place. The Brit told his team on the radio that he was surprised at the lack of improvement when putting on fresh soft tires and taking the fuel out of a car that looked reasonably competitive.
Oscar Piastri was just over half a second off the pace in fifth place for McLaren, while Valtteri Bottas continued his good form this weekend with sixth place for Alfa Romeo.
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Yuki Tsunoda has a long weekend ahead of him and will need to pick up a number of new engine and transmission parts that will limit him to the back of the grid. So he spent much of the session concentrating on long runs – but when he put on the soft tires for a qualifying simulation with a few minutes to go, he ended up in seventh place.
Lando Norris finished eighth, ahead of another impressive performance from Daniel Ricciardo, who underlined AlphaTauri’s pace, while Mercedes’ seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton completed the top 10.
Logan Sargeant proved that Williams has good speed in Mexico, with the 11th fastest time ahead of Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu, the top 12 separated by just over a second.
Ferrari endured a frustrating end to the session as first Charles Leclerc had to abort his qualifying when he encountered a slow-moving Kevin Magnussen on the racing line in the Esses, and then Carlos Sainz spun to avoid when he encountered a slow driver Lance Stroll in the same spot.
That means Ferrari’s ultimate qualifying pace is uncertain ahead of qualifying, with Leclerc in 13th and Sainz in 15th, with the duo cornering Stroll.
Nico Hulkenberg was the best performing Haas in 16th place, ahead of Fernando Alonso, who seemed uncharacteristically off the pace all weekend.
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Alpine also had a difficult session, with Pierre Gasly spinning early while running on the medium tires and Esteban Ocon aborting his run on soft tires when it appeared he had a braking problem before Turn 1.
They ended up in 18th and 20th place, with Magnussen in between, the Dane only able to set a lap time in the last 20 minutes of the session.
This means that the teams still have a few hours to work on their machines before the qualifying session at 3 p.m. local time. In Mexico there have been seven different pole sitters in as many years. Will we see number eight in 2023?