F1 LIVE: Saudi Arabian Grand Prix qualifying latest - Live

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen set the pace in final practice at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix while title rival Lewis Hamilton struggled to make his tyres work to their optimum.

Verstappen was 0.214 seconds quicker than his title rival, but the Dutchman set a couple of quick laps on the soft tyre while Hamilton’s best time was set on the medium.

Hamilton could not improve on the soft tyre at the end of the session; indeed he was 0.3secs slower on it than he had been on the hard earlier on.

All teams seem to be struggling to optimise the soft tyre - normally the quickest over one lap - around the fast and demanding new Jeddah Corniche circuit.

Verstappen leads Hamilton by eight points heading into the penultimate race of the season and the stakes are high for both.

If Verstappen beats Hamilton in Jeddah, his points lead will extend to at least 14 and he will be a strong favourite to clinch the title in Abu Dhabi next weekend.

But if Hamilton beats Verstappen, there will be almost nothing between them heading to the final race.

Verstappen can clinch the title on Sunday if results go his way, but it would require him to win and Hamilton to hit trouble and finish in an abnormal position outside the top five.

As usual, the two title contenders are in a league of their own.

Red Bull’s Sergio Perez was third fastest, 0.529secs off the pace, ahead of the Alpha Tauris of Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly, the second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas and then the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.

Hamilton had a couple of sketchy moments with traffic, once holding up Gasly into Turn One, and then shortly afterwards causing Haas driver Nikita Mazepin to take avoiding action at high speed as he came across Hamilton dawdling on the line through the fast Turns Seven and Eight, which have a blind entry.

Hamilton complained to race engineer Peter Bonnington that he had not warned him Mazepin was coming.

Race director Michael Masi told Haas that the incident was “not great” and that he would deal with it directly with Mercedes.

That suggests Hamilton will escape any form of punishment for the misunderstanding.

But the moment did underline the concerns drivers have been expressing about traffic around a track which is super-quick but where a lot of the corners have blind entries.