Norris Edges Out Oscar Piastri in Brazilian Practice Session
The British driver has outperformed his teammate at all of the past five grands prix.
Lando Norris just pipped team-mate and championship contender Oscar Piastri for the top spot in the dying seconds of practice at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
Norris, who took the title advantage from Piastri by one point after his victory in Mexico City two weeks ago, outpaced the Australian by a mere 0.023s.
Before then, Oscar Piastri had been the quickest of the McLaren pair during the running before the sprint shootout scheduled for 6:30 PM GMT.
Max Verstappen, the sole remaining contender in the points battle, sitting 36 points behind Norris, ended up in 17th place as his team ran a different programme.
Verstappen's team-mate Yuki Tsunoda was the only driver to have an incident, though minor, when he rotated at corner four during the early running.
Tsunoda spun out over the curbs on exit before spinning across the escape zone, and was lucky to avoid just a slight brush of the wall.
The Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton also had a spin, at the final moments of the session, rotating twice through the high-speed Mergulho corner before the final corner on to the pit straight.
Hamilton wrapped up in P19, trailing team-mate the Monegasque driver.
Norris and Piastri were significantly quicker of the rest of the field, with Nico Hulkenberg's car third fastest, 0.619 seconds off Piastri's best.
The Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso was fourth quickest, with Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto in front of the Mercedes of Russell and Alpine's Gasly and the Williams of Carlos Sainz.
