In the purest style of their years of dominance, Mercedes smashed the times in Formula 1 Free Practice 3 for the Mexico City Grand Prix with George Russell fastest and Lewis Hamilton second, with Sergio ‘Checo’ Pérez fifth.
Checo Pérez, who did four laps of the track, all on soft tyres, stopped the clocks in 1:19.241, while England’s Russell recorded a 1:18.399.
The man from Guadalajara drove 24 laps on the 4,304-kilometer Hermanos Rodríguez Autodrome.
In third place was Checo Pérez’s teammate in Red Bull Racing, Max Verstappen, while the Ferraris of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc took fourth and sixth place, respectively.
Surprising Russell
It should come as no surprise, but George Russell won first place in the session with an advantage over teammate Lewis Hamilton of 144 thousandths and more than 4 tenths ahead of Verstappen’s Red Bull. It looked like deja-vu from the great days of Mercedes in the last decade.
And it should not be surprising because the Briton is a brilliant driver who has shown that he can be ideal for the development of the W13 car that was born with problems, but it is also no longer surprising that the single-seater had a positive evolution in the twentieth race of the season, there is much more in the fight with Ferrari and Red Bull.
Red Bull tried to get things under control for the champion team, but their efforts were unsuccessful.
At the start of the session it was Charles Leclerc who put his name on top of the timesheets, but then Max Verstappen hit the table with a 1m19.118s.
There the difference with Checo Pérez was 748 thousandths, very big compared to what we saw in practice on Friday where they even set exactly the same time.
Another one who did a very interesting job was Lando Norris, from McLaren, who took fourth place among the three leading teams, with 15 minutes of running in the session he took the fourth fastest time, but on medium tires, although in the end he I’m in seventh square.