Lando Norris Tops Oscar Piastri in Brazilian Practice
The British driver has outscored his teammate at all of the past five grands prix.
Lando Norris edged out fellow driver and championship contender Oscar Piastri for the top spot in the closing stages of the practice session at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
Norris, who seized the points lead from Piastri by a single point after his victory in Mexico City recently, topped the Melbourne-born driver by a tiny margin of 0.023secs.
Until that point, Piastri had been the quickest of the McLaren pair for most of the session before sprint qualifying set to begin at 6:30 PM GMT.
The Red Bull star, the other racer in the points battle, lying 36 points behind Norris, was classified in 17th position as his team followed a different programme.
His teammate Yuki Tsunoda was the only driver to have an incident, though minor, when he lost control at Turn Four soon after starting.
Tsunoda lost control over the track edges before sliding over the gravel trap, and was lucky to get away with just a minor contact of the wall.
The Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton also had a spin, at the final moments of the practice, spinning around through the high-speed Mergulho turn leading to the final bend on to the start-finish straight.
Hamilton finished practice in 19th, trailing team-mate Charles Leclerc.
The McLaren pair were far ahead of the rest of the field, with the German's car P3, 0.619 seconds behind Piastri's pace.
Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso was fourth fastest, with the Sauber of Gabriel Bortoleto fifth from Mercedes' Russell and Alpine's Pierre Gasly and Williams' Carlos Sainz.
