Max Verstappen led team-mate Daniel Ricciardo as Red Bull put pressure on Mercedes in final practice for the United States Grand Prix.
A disjointed session saw a number of drivers fail to get clean laps but Red Bull had already shown its pace by the time Mercedes attempted laps on supersoft tyres late on. Ricciardo had been fastest on supersofts early in the session but team-mate Verstappen went quicker with his qualifying simulation to set the pace with a 1:36.766.
Ricciardo was then attempting his own qualifying lap when he was held up by Kimi Raikkonen in the first sector, meaning he was unable to improve on his early time and ended the session 0.266s adrift.
Raikkonen finished the session third but was half a second off the pace having run wide at the penultimate corner. The Ferrari was 0.2s clear of Lewis Hamilton, who only just managed to get out in time to start a flying lap on supersoft tyres in the final seconds of the session but hit traffic as a result and had to abort his run. As a result, Hamilton was 0.7s slower than Verstappen but his best time came on softs.
While there is clearly more pace to come from Mercedes than the lap times show, Nico Rosberg's supersoft lap was telling as he was 0.15s down on the Red Bulls in the first sector and was still slower than Verstappen after sector two - despite setting the best time of the session through the middle part of the lap - and returned to the pits instead of completing his lap.
Rosberg was a second off Verstappen in fifth at the chequered flag, with Sebastian Vettel 0.1s further back in sixth. Vettel complained of a gearbox problem and did not return after completing eight laps, although all of his running took place on supersoft tyres.
Nico Hulkenberg, Valtteri Bottas, Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso rounded out the top ten, but it is hard to take a clear picture from the session due to a number of interruptions.
The biggest one was a red flag for 10 minutes when Pascal Wehrlein spun off at Turn 19, losing the rear of his Manor under braking for the penultimate corner and sliding backwards into the gravel. Wehrlein tried for a number of minutes to get the car pushed back out by the marshals but had to switch the engine off as temperatures rose.
Aside from Vettel and Wehrlein, Carlos Sainz - who had Daniil Kvyat confirmed as his Toro Rosso team-mate for 2017 earlier on Saturday morning - was the other driver to fail to reach double figures. Sainz was hit by two punctures, first on his right rear and then on the left rear, which were caused by interference with the rim on his Toro Rosso.
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| Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 1:36.766 | 16 |
| 02 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull | 1:37.032 | 19 |
| 03 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 1:37.284 | 15 |
| 04 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1:37.483 | 12 |
| 05 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 1:37.784 | 10 |
| 06 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | 1:37.894 | 8 |
| 07 | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India | 1:37.948 | 17 |
| 08 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams | 1:38.188 | 16 |
| 09 | Jenson Button | McLaren | 1:38.212 | 14 |
| 10 | Fernando Alonso | McLaren | 1:38.452 | 13 |
| 11 | Sergio Perez | Force India | 1:38.512 | 16 |
| 12 | Jolyon Palmer | Renault | 1:38.528 | 14 |
| 13 | Felipe Massa | Williams | 1:38.607 | 15 |
| 14 | Daniil Kvyat | Toro Rosso | 1:38.691 | 16 |
| 15 | Carlos Sainz | Toro Rosso | 1:38.710 | 6 |
| 16 | Esteban Gutierrez | Haas | 1:38.939 | 13 |
| 17 | Romain Grosjean | Haas | 1:39.097 | 13 |
| 18 | Kevin Magnussen | Renault | 1:39.105 | 14 |
| 19 | Marcus Ericsson | Sauber | 1:39.239 | 14 |
| 20 | Felipe Nasr | Sauber | 1:39.509 | 14 |
| 21 | Esteban Ocon | Manor | 1:39.771 | 19 |
| 22 | Pascal Wehrlein | Manor | 1:41.427 | 7 |
