Piastre fastest in McLaren’s 1-2 at FP3 in Mexico

The Australian and Briton were separated at the top by 59 milliseconds, giving a good first indication that the major upgrade to the McLaren MCL38 with the new floor introduced by the team this three days at the Mexico City GP, the 20th race of this year’s championship, is paying off. of Formula 1.

Carlos Sainz, fastest on Friday in the Ferrari SF-24, was 0.34″ clear of Piastri in third, but also around three tenths ahead of Max Verstappen in the Red Bull RB20.

The Dutchman suffered a serious problem with the intake system of Honda’s hot V6 Turbo engine in the first two free practice sessions yesterday. Today the problem was solved by Red Bull, as they changed the engine of the champion’s RB20.

However, RBR did not use a new engine but one of Verstappen’s older ones from this year, so the 26-year-old was not penalized at the start. The Milton Keynes team claim they had planned this change anyway, long before Max’s problems arose yesterday.

This 3rd period of free testing at the Hermanos Rodríguez Autobahn in the Mexican capital began with the collection of team data from the soft and medium tyre, before qualifying simulations on the first of these.

Early on in the set of laps, Verstappen was fastest, but George Russell – who needed a new chassis for his Mercedes W15 after his heavy crash in FP2 yesterday – was soon on top.

Lewis Hamilton then went on top in the other Mercedes W15 and one and a half tenths clear of Russell, but Carlos Sainz quickly responded by dropping under 1:18 for the first time today. The Spaniard then improved his time to 1:17.447, before lowering it by a further tenth.

Qualifying simulations on the soft tire and light fuel started with Verstappen clocking a time of 1:17.003. But in the middle section of the track the RB20 looked vulnerable, as did several braking points – so Lando Norris soon toppled the Dutchman from the top with a time of 1:16.551.

In the end, however, Oscar Piastri found half a tenth more than his English counterpart in McLaren and climbed to the top of the times, while Saint also dropped under 1:17 to get a little closer to the McLarens.

Hamilton followed at 57mm behind Verstappen, while Charles Leclerc in the other Ferrari rounded out the top six, nearly two tenths further back – due to the traffic he encountered on his final fast lap.