Perez and world champion Verstappen, who is seeking a record-extending 15th victory of the season, appeared to be in a league of their own for much of the session, but Ferrari produced a late show of speed to set the stage for Qualifying, which takes place on Friday ahead of the final Sprint of the season on Saturday.

Carlos Sainz, who will receive a five-place grid penalty for Sunday's race after taking a new engine part, was fourth for Ferrari, with Mercedes duo Lewis Hamilton and George Russell fifth and sixth, respectively.

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Mercedes appeared to be slightly off the pace of Red Bull and Ferrari, but with clouds gathering over the circuit and rain forecast to arrive during Qualifying, Hamilton may retain hopes of claiming a first pole of the season.

While Verstappen continues to chase records in the final stages of what has been a remarkable season for the Dutchman, Perez remains in a close battle with Leclerc for second in the drivers' championship.

The Mexican leads the Ferrari driver by five points, and could complete total domination by sealing a Red Bull one-two, with the team having already ended Mercedes' eight-year streak of constructors' titles.

Sebastian Vettel, who is competing in the penultimate race of his career ahead of his retirement at the end of the season, impressed to take seventh for Aston Martin.

Meanwhile, fellow German Mick Schumacher, who is rumoured to have lost his Haas seat to Nico Hulkenberg for next season, put in a solid display to take eighth.

Fractional margins decide frantic session

The third and final sprint race of the 2022 season was always likely to create a frantic practice, with teams having just one hour - compared to the usual three - to prepare for Qualifying.

All 20 cars were out on track in the opening minutes, and the heavy traffic contributed to a couple of incidents that left each Ferrari driver unhappy.

First, Sainz was critical of his former McLaren team-mate Lando Norris, who he only just managed to avoid at Turn 3 with the Briton going slowly.

The stewards chose not to investigate Norris, who was well enough to drive on Friday having missed media duties on Thursday with a suspected case of food poisoning.

The stewards were also unmoved by Leclerc's anger at a similar situation, which saw him needing to take action to avoid Aston Martin's Lance Stroll.

Ferrari appeared to be given further reason for frustration when Red Bull showed impressive pace midway through the session, as Perez moved narrowly ahead of Verstappen when they both did their first runs on fresh soft tyres.

The Italian team, who looked set to compete with Red Bull for both the drivers' and constructors' titles before falling away in the second half of the season, eventually provided an answer.

In the closing minutes of the session, Leclerc remarkably managed to split the closely-matched Red Bulls, while Sainz was almost 0.2s back in fourth.

That left the Spaniard just one-hundredth of a second clear of Hamilton, who retains room for improvement having aborted his first attempt at a qualifying simulation lap on soft tyres after making an error.

Mercedes head of trackside engineering Andrew Shovlin told Sky Sports F1 after the session that he had been pleasantly surprised by the strength of the team's performance.

"What we've seen with our car is when we're on max downforce we tend to go pretty well," Shovlin said.

"We weren't expecting to be as competitive here as Mexico, but looking at the picture of the session it looks like six cars could all be in with a shout at pole or the front row."