Alex Albon thrust himself into contention for pole position for the Mexico City Grand Prix following a stunning performance in final practice at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
In his flying Williams, Albon led the way with a lap time of one minute 17.957s going into the closing stages, and as his rivals’ qualifying simulations runs unfolded around him.
At the death, however, the Thai-British driver was pipped by three-time F1 champion Max Verstappen, who goes into qualifying after finishing quickest in all three practice sessions in his Red Bull.
Albon, though, can consider himself firmly in the mix for pole if he can replicate his form over the one-lap shootout.
It was a stunning end to the session after what had been a quiet start, with only one time on the board in the opening seven minutes, and that a 1:20.740s coming from Valtteri Bottas on the hard tyres in his Alfa Romeo.
Even after 10 minutes, with Charles Leclerc (1:19.238s) and Carlos Sainz (1:19.449s), 16 drivers had yet to set a time, with only six on track after that period.
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Hoping for an improvement in his Mercedes after declaring the W14 to be a “night-and-day difference” compared to its display in last weekend’s United States Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton then edged ahead of Leclerc with a 1:19.244s.
Team-mate George Russell then underlined the overnight development with the car as he posted the quickest lap of the weekend at that stage with a 1:18.644s, almost six-tenths of a second ahead of Hamilton, albeit with the duo clearly on a different run plan in using the softs.
With just over 20 minutes elapsed, Verstappen and team-mate Sergio Perez finally made their first appearances of the session, with the latter delighting his home crowd by setting a purple time in the first sector, only to suffer a minor lock-up in the middle and fall away.
As for Verstappen, his first flying lap on the softs was not good enough to depose Russell, with the Dutchman finishing 0.073s adrift.
Daniel Ricciardo, confident of a top-10 place in qualifying after his Friday practice showing, was the last of the 20 drivers to emerge on track after 25 minutes, and the Australian underlined that confidence with the fourth-fastest time, and set on the mediums. On his second push lap, Ricciardo improved to a 1:18.944s.
In between those two laps, Verstappen captured the top spot with a 1:18.249s, 0.215s ahead of Russell, whilst Perez improved to third, but 0.358s back.
Verstappen’s time was then blitzed by Albon, the first to set a time on low-fuel and in qualifying trim, becoming the first driver over the weekend to dip below 78 seconds for a lap.
Bottas, who had finished fourth quickest lap at the end of FP2, then popped up with the third-best time, and with 15 minutes still to run, the Finn eventually finishing sixth on the timesheet.
Oscar Piastri, who complained early on that “the ride and the rear grip feels pretty terrible” in his McLaren, set the leading first sector time of 27.6s on his first run on the softs, only to make a mistake by running wide on the entry into the stadium complex, and his lap drifting away.
The young Australian learned from his mistake and managed to improve to a 1:18.392, the fifth best lap of the session behind Verstappen, Albon, Perez and Russell. Team-mate Lando Norris was eighth.
On his first run on soft tyres, Ricciardo improved on his medium-compound time by three-tenths of a second, but at that stage with the quali sims unfolding, the 34-year-old Australian was lying eighth, ultimately falling to ninth by the end, with team-mate Yuki Tsunoda ahead of him in seventh by 0.049s.
On his first proper flying run, Verstappen then managed to pip Albon, albeit complaining of traffic in the final sector.
Lewis Hamilton just sneaked into the top 10, and clearly unhappy with his car.
It was worse for Ferrari, though, with Leclerc and Sainz a lowly 13th and 15th, although both were hampered by traffic on their final flying laps, with the former initially by Haas’ Kevin Magnussen.
Sainz, in particular, was enraged by Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll impeding him, resulting in a spin and leading to him taking to the radio to state: “This guy! Honestly, this guy! if that’s not a penalty…you cannot do that in practice.”
The stewards, however, disagreed with Sainz as they opted to take no further action after an investigation.
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