Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsRace weekend

Rosberg edges Hamilton in tight FP3 in Mexico

Nico Rosberg set the fastest time of a close final practice session for the Mexican Grand Prix, with three teams covered by 0.211s.

Having been fastest in the second practice session on Friday afternoon, Rosberg remained quickest but was just 0.014s clear of team-mate Lewis Hamilton in the final hour of running. Hamilton also ran wide on his first flying lap on soft tyres but was able to improve on his final attempt in a tight session.

Daniel Ricciardo was third quickest for Red Bull and just 0.118s slower than Rosberg's best time as the low grip levels appeared to play in to Red Bull's hands. Ferrari is also in the mix with Sebastian Vettel fourth, a little over 0.2s adrift of Rosberg.

Daniil Kvyat was fifth ahead of home favourite Sergio Perez in sixth, with Perez encouragingly just half a second slower than Rosberg. Such was the close nature of the session, the top 12 cars were all within a second of the quickest time of the morning.

While Vettel was close to the front, team-mate Kimi Raikkonen suffered a reliability issue which forced him to stop on his fourth lap of the day. Raikkonen pulled off the track in the Esses with flames emerging from underneath the engine cover, giving Ferrari cause for concern ahead of qualifying.

Jenson Button's difficult weekend continued after he was also only able to complete four laps before being confined to the garage. Button spent most of FP1 unable to run due to a connector issue on his first power unit, and having taken a new one as planned for FP2, that unit proved problematic and needed to be changed during the final practice session.

While track grip was low it appeared to improve compared to Friday, with only Kvyat spinning at Turn 6, though there were a number of occasions drivers ran wide having struggled under braking.

AS IT HAPPENED: Mexican Grand Prix FP3

Eric Silbermann's Mexican grumpy preview

Technical analysis: United States

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Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
01	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:21.083	23
02	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1:21.097	23
03	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	1:21.201	21
04	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	1:21.294	24
05	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull	1:21.530	27
06	Sergio Perez	Force India	1:21.603	27
07	Valtteri Bottas	Williams	1:21.772	26
08	Carlos Sainz	Toro Rosso	1:21.775	28
09	Felipe Massa	Williams	1:21.945	27
10	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	1:22.010	25
11	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso	1:22.039	31
12	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus	1:22.042	21
13	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	1:22.184	24
14	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	1:22.871	30
15	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	1:23.065	26
16	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	1:23.067	23
17	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	1:24.648	4
18	Will Stevens	Manor	1:25.654	20
19	Alexander Rossi	Manor	1:28.176	8
20	Jenson Button	McLaren	1:29.336	4

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.