FP3 - Rosberg leads final practice in Mexico

Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg edged out team-mate Lewis Hamilton by only 0.067s in a very closely matched final session at Mexico City. The top twelve drivers were all within a second of Rosberg’s best time of 1:21.083, with both Red Bulls confirming their pace to threat Ferrari and Mercedes.

Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo stood in front of former team-mate Sebastian Vettel, with Daniil Kvyat fifth, ahead of home hero Sergio Perez, who’s enjoying a very special Grand Prix weekend. Then came Valtteri Bottas, Carlos Sainz, Felipe Massa, and Nico Hulkenberg.

In FP3, it was bad news though for Jenson Button, who went from reporting engine vibrations to being restricted to four laps total. McLaren confirmed they would be switching back to his FP1 engine for qualifying. Similarly troubled was Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, who stopped on track and is waiting for his car to be fixed, he could also need an engine change.

The intriguing session worked perfectly as a qualifying set-up, with up to four drivers and three teams so close to each other it’s very promising and leaves no margin for error. And maybe we’ll welcome rain.

FP3 Top times

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time
1	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:21.083
2	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	+0.014
3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	+0.118
4	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	+0.211
5	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull	+0.447
6	Sergio Perez	Force India	+0.520
7	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	+0.689
8	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	+0.692
9	Felipe Massa	Williams	+0.862
10	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	+0.927