Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time in final practice for the Brazilian Grand Prix despite a spin and a gearbox glitch during the hour-long session.
After chasing the wrong set-up during Friday practice, Hamilton was confident of closing the gap to Nico Rosberg ahead of qualifying and he ended up with an advantage of 0.123s over his Mercedes team-mate by the end of FP3. However, the session was not straightforward for Hamilton, who struggled with a gear selection issue 20 minutes into the session, which was then rectified before a spin exiting Murgulho 15 minutes later. Rosberg was fastest in the first sector, but couldn't match Hamilton's impressive pace in sectors two and three.
Hamilton's closest non-Mercedes rival was Sebastian Vettel, who managed to close the gap he had by the end of Friday practice but was still 0.690s off Hamilton. The Ferrari lost time to the Mercedes in all three sectors, but the biggest deficit was in the tighter middle sector where Vettel was 0.3s down on Hamilton.
Kimi Raikkonen was fourth fastest and over a second off the lead Mercedes and Valtteri Bottas fifth fastest with a gap of 1.2s to the front. Bottas will receive a three-place grid penalty from wherever he qualifies due to a penalty he received on Friday for passing a car under red flags.
Mercedes-powered cars blocked out positions five to nine, with Force India's Nico Hulkenberg sixth ahead of Romain Grosjean in the Lotus, the second Force India of Sergio Perez and Pastor Maldonado's Lotus in tenth. Sao Paulo local Felipe Massa continued to struggle and ended up in 12th place in the Williams behind Max Verstappen's Toro Rosso and the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo.
After an engine failure on Friday, Fernando Alonso managed the 14th fastest time in the McLaren with a gap of 1.78s to Hamilton at the front. Jenson Button was a further 0.5s off the pace in the second McLaren with only the two Manors slower than him.