Piastri leads Norris and Sainz in the final training session

Oscar Piastri finished the final practice session before the Mexican Grand Prix at the top of the timesheets, 0.059 seconds ahead of his McLaren Formula 1 teammate Lando Norris.

The two McLarens were around three tenths ahead of the rest of the field, led by Carlos Sainz, the headliner at the start of the session, as the Ferrari driver was unable to capitalize on his pace in the first half of the session.

In response to FP2 being used as a Pirelli tire test, the drivers spent the first few laps gaining experience with the soft and medium tires.

Max Verstappen did the first lap on soft tires right at the start and tried to compensate for the limited mileage from Friday; The Dutchman's engine was replaced to fix the air leak that had plagued him yesterday. He set the pace with a time of 1:18.397 minutes, but was quickly beaten.

George Russell, another driver recovering from Friday's problems after his FP2 required a chassis change, set a time of 1m18.284 – but Lewis Hamilton was able to beat that time by around a tenth and a half.

Sainz then broke the 1:18 minute barrier and set a lap of 1:17.825 minutes, which his teammate Charles Leclerc almost matched; Sainz then improved to a time of 1:17.447 minutes to raise the bar and improved again by a tenth to continue his position at the top of the leaderboard.

Verstappen started the real qualifying simulations with a time of 1:17.003 minutes, but looked scruffy in the middle sector, leaving his lap open to Lando Norris' subsequent performance. The Briton managed a time of 1:16.551 minutes to close the gap between himself and Verstappen, although Oscar Piastri was fastest, half a tenth ahead of his teammate.

Sainz was third fastest with a time of 1:16.832 minutes, also securing the lead over Verstappen, who had problems with the front brake and failed to improve his follow-up performance.

Although Hamilton felt his own lap, which took him fifth fastest, was good, he was concerned about being more than half a second behind the McLarens.

A late attempt by Charles Leclerc to move beyond sixth appeared to be successful as he improved in the first sector but lost time mid-lap due to the traffic jam on his lap at the end of the session.

Yuki Tsunoda was seventh fastest ahead of Russell, while Kevin Magnussen and Liam Lawson (who suffered a brief spin in the Foro Sol in the first half of the session) rounded out the top 10. Magnussen did not improve on his first attempt as the soft tires locked up and he was ahead at turn 12, but a second attempt put him in the top half of the field.

This came at Alex Albon's detriment, as the Anglo-Thai had overcome his crash in FP1 and subsequent miss in FP2, leaving his teammate Franco Colapinto behind by two tenths – the Williams was separated by Sauber's Valtteri Bottas.