Oscar Piastri led a McLaren 1-2 in the final practice session before Formula 1 qualifying at the Mexican Grand Prix, usurping early pacesetter Ferrari.

Much of the first half of FP3 was led by the Ferraris - which had tentatively looked strongest on Friday, the team seemingly carrying on from its dominant 1-2 at Austin.

But it was the McLarens that performed best during the late-session qualifying simulations.

Piastri was marginally the faster of the McLaren drivers, topping FP3 with an 1m16.492s, already just shy of seven tenths of a second faster than Carlos Sainz’s pole time last year.

Lando Norris was 0.059s slower than his team-mate, but had a considerably better hour than title rival Max Verstappen.

Verstappen avoided a repeat of the engine issues that plagued his Friday, swapping to a different engine within his pool and avoiding a penalty, but he struggled for grip throughout the session.

“Ah this doesn’t work, there’s no grip, front and rear,” Verstappen told his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase.

He ultimately ended up fourth fastest, half a second off Piastri and just 0.057s ahead of Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes. 

Verstappen’s home hero team-mate Sergio Perez struggled even more, finishing the session only 14th fastest, 1.3s off the pace after making mistakes on both of his late-session flying laps.

“Yep, there’s no potential on the front to attack the braking,” Perez lamented at the end of the session.

Ferrari didn’t look quite as strong on its final soft tyre runs as its earlier runs, finding far less time than McLaren did from one run to the next.

Carlos Sainz was third, 0.340s slower than Piastri, while team-mate Charles Leclerc was sixth, a further four tenths adrift.

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