Albon flies as Verstappen completes Mexico practice sweep

MEXICO CITY : Red Bull's triple Formula One world champion Max Verstappen completed a Mexico City Grand Prix practice sweep on Saturday with the fastest time in the third and final session before qualifying.

The dominant Dutch 26-year-old, who topped the timesheets in both Friday sessions, lapped the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez with a best time of one minute 17.887 seconds.

Williams's Alex Albon split the Red Bull drivers with a flying lap 0.070 slower than Verstappen, with Mexican Sergio Perez a crowd-pleasing third quickest, 0.139 off his team mate's time.

Six different teams filled the top seven places with George Russell fourth for Mercedes, Oscar Piastri fifth for McLaren, Valtteri Bottas sixth for Alfa Romeo and Yuki Tsunoda seventh for AlphaTauri.

McLaren's Lando Norris was eighth quickest and seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton only 10th fastest for Mercedes.

Tsunoda will start last due to penalties for changes to his car, including the power unit.

Verstappen and Red Bull have already won both championships but the Dutch driver is chasing records in the remaining four races.

A win on Sunday would be the 51st of his career, taking him level with four-times champion Alain Prost, and also a record 16th of the season.