Oscar Piastri topped the essential closing observe session on the Mexico Metropolis Grand Prix forward of McLaren teammate Lando Norris. FP3 was the primary session of the weekend not interrupted by purple flags, and with FP2 on Friday afternoon commandeered by Pirelli for a 2025 tire check, groups had a lot work to do to validate set-up modifications forward of qualifying.
McLaren, which struggled for final tempo on the primary day of working, emerged quickest, with Piastri rocketing to high spot with a finest time of 1m16.492s. Teammate Norris, the one McLaren driver working the crew’s latest ground, was 0059s adrift.
The papaya tempo was mighty sufficient to upset Ferrari significantly, with Carlos Sainz 0.34s off the tempo after having topped Friday working. The Spaniard was most assured of his automotive’s race tempo however was optimistic the SF-24 would at the very least be within the combat over one lap with McLaren.
Sainz was comfortably McLaren’s closest challenger, although, with Max Verstappen fourth, 0.511s down on Piastri.
The Dutchman complained of getting no grip at both axle after his quickest lap, shedding probably the most time to the leaders within the closing sector, significantly the technical stadium part.
Lewis Hamilton was impressed by his 0.568s margin in fifth, having felt he’d put collectively a fast lap solely to seek out himself greater than half a second off the tempo.
Charles Leclerc was sixth within the second Ferrari, having misplaced most of his time within the second and third sectors, although the Monegasque would have competed for fourth had he strung collectively all three of his finest sectors on one lap.
Yuki Tsunoda was spectacular in seventh for RB at 0.81s off the tempo, beating Mercedes’s George Russell. Russell was driving a largely rebuilt automotive after his heavy crash in FP2, the crew revealing automotive No. 63 required an in a single day chassis change however that its engine and gearbox had been salvageable.
Kevin Magnussen was ninth for Haas forward of Liam Lawson finishing the highest 10, 1.002s off the tempo.
Alex Albon was eleventh forward of Valtteri Bottas and Franco Colapinto simply outdoors the highest 10.
Sergio Perez struggled to 14th, 1.295s off the tempo, the Mexican complaining of inadequate entrance grip to assault the corners. He misplaced simply over 0.2s per sector to his teammate, although his finest time would have been nearer with out a lock-up within the stadium part.
Fernando Alonso was fifteenth because the best-placed Aston Martin forward of Nico Hulkenberg, who mentioned his Haas automotive was battling “numb” brakes early within the session.
Lance Stroll was seventeenth forward of Esteban Ocon, Zhou Guanyu and Pierre Gasly.
