Lando Norris Leads Oscar Piastri in Sao Paulo Practice
The British driver has outperformed Oscar Piastri at each of the past five grands prix.
The McLaren driver narrowly beat fellow driver and championship contender Oscar Piastri for the top spot in the dying seconds of the practice session at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
Norris, who took the championship lead from Piastri by just one point after winning in Mexico City recently, beat the Melbourne-born driver by a tiny margin of 0.023secs.
Until that point, Piastri had been the fastest McLaren driver for most of the session before the sprint shootout due at 18:30 GMT.
Max Verstappen, the other racer in the championship fight, trailing with a 36-point deficit behind Norris, ended up in P17 as his team followed a different programme.
Verstappen's team-mate Yuki Tsunoda was the only driver to have an incident, if briefly, when he lost control at the fourth corner soon after starting.
The Japanese lost control over the exit kerbs before sliding over the run-off area, and was blessed to avoid just a light touch of the wall.
Ferrari's the seven-time champion also spun, at the final moments of the practice, spinning around through the fast downhill corner before the final bend on to the pit straight.
The veteran wrapped up in P19, one place behind teammate Charles Leclerc.
Norris and Piastri were significantly quicker of the remaining drivers, with the German's car P3, 0.619 seconds off Piastri's best.
Aston Martin's the Spanish driver was in fourth, with Sauber's Bortoleto in front of the Mercedes of George Russell and the Alpine of Gasly and Williams' Carlos Sainz.
