After giving the spotlight to Ferrari in the Friday afternoon session, Red Bull appeared at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, to confirm itself as an alternative to Mercedes.
Dutch driver Max Verstappen had the best time in the third free practice of the Mexico Grand Prix, ahead of British driver Lewis Hamilton from Mercedes, and his teammate in the Austrian team, Daniel Ricciardo.
After the current champion of the category dominated the practice with soft tires, the young Formula One promise used supersoft tires to stop the clock at 1:19.137 minutes, 94 milliseconds faster than Hamilton, who was also using the same compound, and 233 milliseconds ahead of Ricciardo.
The championship leader, German driver Nico Rosberg (Mercedes), finished fourth, while his compatriot from Ferrari, Sebastian Vettel, finished sixth and couldn't repeat his first place from the second session, as he lost speed.
Mexican driver Sergio Pérez had a session more in line with his expectations and finished eleventh, with a best lap time of 1:20.472, also on supersoft tires, two places behind his teammate in Force India, German driver Nico Hülkenberg.
The other local driver, Esteban Gutiérrez, also improved compared to what happened on Friday and placed seventeenth, with 1:21.338, ahead of the Manor and Sauber drivers and his teammate at Haas, Romain Grosjean.
The first to set a best lap time was once again French driver Esteban Ocon, from Manor, although he immediately felt the pressure from the Mercedes drivers, who used soft tires to reduce their times.
Then Sebastian Vettel arrived to get closer to the silver arrows, but Red Bull responded and Max Verstappen got to 238 milliseconds from Hamilton.
A little later, Ricciardo improved his teammate's time in the Austrian team, but he ended up 229 milliseconds behind Lewis, although when everyone used the supersoft tires, the best time was Max's.
Once again, traffic was a common complaint from the drivers, especially from Rosberg and Hamilton, although there were not as many track exits during the session, and the most important one was Felipe Massa's from Williams.
The Top 10 was completed by Valtteri Bottas (Williams), in fifth; Kimi Räikkönen (Ferrari), in seventh; Massa (Willams), in eighth; and Carlos Sainz (Toro Rosso), in tenth.