Norris Tops Piastri in Brazilian Practice
Lando Norris has outperformed his teammate at all of the previous five race weekends.
Lando Norris edged out team-mate and championship contender Oscar Piastri for the fastest time in the dying seconds of practice at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
The British racer, who grabbed the championship lead from his teammate by one point after his victory in Mexico City two weeks ago, topped the Melbourne-born driver by a tiny margin of 0.023secs.
Until that point, Piastri had been the leading McLaren during the running before sprint qualifying due at the evening session.
The Red Bull star, the other racer in the points battle, sitting with a 36-point deficit behind Norris, ended up in P17 as his Red Bull team ran a different programme.
Verstappen's team-mate Yuki Tsunoda was the only driver to have an incident, albeit lightly, when he rotated at corner four early in the session.
Tsunoda spun out over the curbs on exit before sliding over the gravel trap, and was blessed to get away with just a slight brush of the barrier.
Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton also spun, at the very end of the session, spinning around through the high-speed corner leading to the final bend on to the start-finish straight.
Hamilton ended the session in P19, trailing teammate Charles Leclerc.
The McLaren drivers were significantly quicker of the rest of the field, with the German's car in third, 0.619 seconds slower than Piastri's pace.
The Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso was fourth quickest, with Sauber's Bortoleto fifth from the Mercedes of Russell and the Alpine of Gasly and the Williams of Sainz.
