Norris edges Antonelli in third Mexico City GP practice

Lando Norris bested Kimi Antonelli to top spot in the final practice session at the Mexico City Grand Prix. Charles Leclerc, who topped both Friday practice sessions, finished the final pre-qualifying hour third.

Norris saved his fastest lap until the final two minutes of the session. Despite the lap featuring only one personal-best sector, in the middle split, he was quick enough to move ahead of Antonelli by just 0.001s.

Antonelli ended the hour with the quickest overall time in the middle split, but similar to Norris, he couldn’t string together his three best sectors on one lap. Had he done so, he would have been around 0.1s clear at the top of the order.

Leclerc appeared to suffer for having completed two preparation laps on his last set of softs – several teams attempted the same – with his Ferrari looking less settled than it had done on the medium tire earlier in the hour, when he had been quickest on track. A second stint on the used softs propelled him to his best time, 0.117s off the pace despite purple first and final splits.

Oscar Piastri was 0.195s off the pace of his session-topping teammate, his biggest loss coming in the middle sector.

Max Verstappen complained of “brakes not working” by the end of FP3 on his way to fifth and 0.351s off the pace, while Lewis Hamilton struggled to get the most from his soft tires and placed sixth and 0.469s down.

George Russell was the first of the front-runners to complete his final soft-tire run and briefly moved into top spot but faded subsequently to seventh, 0.507s off the pace.

Isack Hadjar said his Red Bull Racing machine was in the worst shape it had been in so far this weekend and was 0.509s down on the fastest time.

Liam Lawson improved late to top the midfield in ninth, only 0.004s behind Hadjar, with teammate Arvid Lindblad 0.024s further back.

Nico Hulkenberg was 11th for Audi ahead of Alpine teammates Franco Colapinto and Pierre Gasly.

Fernando Alonso was 14th, recovering from what he suspected was an engine problem early in the session that resulted in a spin.

Oliver Bearman was 15th ahead of Williams duo Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon.

Lance Stroll had an overnight chassis change but couldn’t finish higher than 18th and more than half a second down on Aston Martin teammate Alonso.

Ryo Hirakawa steered his Haas to 19th in his debut for the team in place of Esteban Ocon and was a respectable 0.577s behind teammate Bearman.

Valtteri Bottas was slowest of the finishers in the sole running Cadillac, 2.742s off the pace.

Gabriel Bortoleto’s disastrous weekend continued with another engine issue that appeared on his first out-lap, preventing him from setting a time. Bortoleto handed his car to development driver Freddie Slater in FP1 and completed only 12 laps in FP2 owing to another engine issue, leaving him critically low on mileage ahead of qualifying.

Sergio Perez did not participate in the session owing to a precautionary engine change.

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