Lando Norris Tops Piastri in Brazilian Practice Session
The British driver has outscored Oscar Piastri at all of the past five race weekends.
Lando Norris edged out fellow driver and title rival the Australian for the fastest time in the closing stages of the practice session at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
The British racer, who grabbed the title advantage from Piastri by a single point after his victory in the Mexican Grand Prix recently, outpaced the Melbourne-born driver by 0.023 seconds.
Until that point, Oscar Piastri had been the fastest McLaren driver for most of the session before the sprint shootout set to begin at 6:30 PM GMT.
Max Verstappen, the only other driver in the championship fight, lying 36 points behind Norris, was classified in P17 as his team followed a different programme.
His teammate the Japanese driver was the only driver to crash, albeit lightly, when he spun at the fourth corner soon after starting.
The Japanese spun out over the track edges before rotating through the escape zone, and was fortunate to avoid just a minor contact of the barrier.
Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton also had a spin, at the very end of the session, rotating twice through the high-speed Mergulho corner approaching the last turn on to the start-finish straight.
Hamilton ended the session in 19th, just behind team-mate the Monegasque driver.
The McLaren drivers were well clear of the other competitors, with the German's car in third, 0.619 seconds behind Piastri's pace.
Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso was fourth fastest, with the Sauber of Gabriel Bortoleto in front of the Mercedes of George Russell and the Alpine of Gasly and Williams' Sainz.
