Lando Norris delivered a consummate final practice performance to give the F1 championship challenger the edge going into qualifying for the Mexico City Grand Prix.
The McLaren driver, 14 points behind team-mate Oscar Piastri going into Sunday's 71-lap race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, delivered a superb lap in the qualifying simulation runs late in the session of 1:16.633s.
That followed a noticeable ride-height change between his two soft-tyre runs, leaving Norris a staggering 0.345s clear of Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton, with Mercedes' George Russell half a second adrift in third.
As for Red Bull's Max Verstappen, quickest after Friday practice but unhappy with the race pace of his RB21, the four-time champion was only sixth on the timesheet, 0.609s off the pace. Piastri was marginally ahead of the Dutchman in fifth.
Result Free practice 3 - Mexican
Lockl-ups aplenty
Less than seven minutes into the sesssion, Verstappen was the first to set a timed lap of 1:18.914s on the medium tyres.
It was unusual in that Verstappen would not ordinarily post a time so quickly in FP3, an indicator, following his comments on Friday about his RB21's struggle for race pace, that he was testing overnight changes, particularly with the rear wing covered in flow-vis paint.
In contrast to a smooth opening lap for Verstappen, Hamilton suffered on his opener, notably via a severe lock-up into Turn 1 that forced him to cut across the grass, whilst also flat-spotting a tyre.
Following a cool-down, and despite the flat spot, the seven-time F1 champion posted a time seven-tenths of a second adrift of Verstappen who, after a double cool-down, improved to 1:18.051s.
On soft tyres, Williams' Carlos Sainz edged Verstappen by 0.023s to take over at the top after 13 minutes of the session, by which time eight drivers had yet to set a time, and four had yet to even venture on track, including Piastri and both Mercedes drivers.
Norris' first timed lap saw him surprisingly lock up at the rear into Turn 4, with the puff of smoke seemingly distracting his fellow Briton Hamilton following in behind, forcing him to take to the escape road to return to the circuit.
With his second attempt, Norris managed to finish within 0.037s of Sainz. As for Piastri, he was almost a second off the pace.
With almost 25 minutes elapsed, Russell and Kimi Antonelli finally set lap times, with their run plan clear as, like Piastri, they were both around a second down.
At that stage, Norris edged ahead by 0.013s over Sainz, before Russell, who had complained of sliding from his medium tyres, also posted a lap 0.013s behind Norris.
Shortly after, the top six - Norris, Sainz, Russell, Verstappen, Ferrari's Charles Leclerc and Isack Hadjar for Racing Bulls - were split by just 0.065s.
Russell, though, broke through to finish top ahead of the qualifying simulation runs, breaking the 78-second barrier with a lap of 1:17.892s, 0.123s clear of Norris.
Williams' Alex Albon appeared as if he would set the benchmark on low fuel and soft tyres after purpling the first two sectors, but in the stadium section, a lock-up forced him to abort.
The number of lock-ups throughout the session was noticeable, a consequence of high track temperatures pushing 48°C, and the tyres lacking grip.
Instead, it was Hadjar who set the pace with a 1:17.396s, a short-lived time as Piastri posted a 1:17.315s, before that was beaten by Leclerc by nine-thousandths of a second.
It was then Antonelli's turn to take over at the top by 0.053s from Leclerc before Hamilton set a fine lap of 1:16.978s. As for Verstappen, his first lap was only a 1:17.337s, marginally improving later to a 1:17.242s.
On a second run, Norris surged ahead with a 1:16.633s, 0.345s clear of Hamilton., purpling every sector en route, a time that no one could come close to.
Behind a British one-two-three, Leclerc was fourth fastest, 0.566s down, just ahead of Piastri and Verstappen.
Antonelli, Hadjar, Red Bull's Yuki Tsunoda and Gabriel Bortoleto in his Stake completed the top 10, the latter 0.893s down.
Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso finished bottom, albeit unable to do his qualifying sim runs due to what was described as "a small issue with the front-right" of his Aston Martin.
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