Lando Norris Leads Oscar Piastri in Sao Paulo Practice Session
Lando Norris has outperformed Oscar Piastri at all of the previous five race weekends.
The McLaren driver just pipped fellow driver and title rival the Australian for the quickest lap in the closing stages of practice at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
Norris, who grabbed the title advantage from Piastri by a single point after taking the win in the Mexican Grand Prix two weeks ago, outpaced the Australian by a mere 0.023s.
Before then, Oscar Piastri had been the fastest McLaren driver during the running before sprint qualifying scheduled for 6:30 PM GMT.
Max Verstappen, the sole remaining contender in the points battle, trailing with a 36-point deficit Norris, ended up in P17 as his team ran a different programme.
Verstappen's team-mate the Japanese driver was the sole competitor to crash, if briefly, when he rotated at corner four early in the session.
The Japanese spun out over the track edges before rotating through the run-off area, and was blessed to escape 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 before the final corner on to the start-finish straight.
The veteran ended the session in 19th place, just behind teammate the Monegasque driver.
Norris and Piastri were far ahead of the other competitors, with Nico Hulkenberg's Sauber in third, 0.619 seconds slower than Piastri's best.
The Aston Martin of the Spanish driver was fourth quickest, with the Sauber of Gabriel Bortoleto fifth from Mercedes' George Russell and Alpine's Gasly and Williams' Carlos Sainz.
