Lando Norris Tops Piastri in Brazilian Practice
The British driver has outperformed Oscar Piastri at all of the past five grands prix.
The McLaren driver narrowly beat fellow driver and title rival the Australian for the quickest lap in the dying seconds of practice at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
The British racer, who seized the championship lead from Piastri by one point after taking the win in the Mexican Grand Prix two weeks ago, outpaced the Melbourne-born driver by a tiny margin of 0.023secs.
Until that point, Oscar Piastri had been the leading McLaren during the running before the sprint shootout scheduled for 6:30 PM GMT.
Max Verstappen, the only other driver in the championship fight, trailing with a 36-point deficit behind Norris, ended up in 17th place as his team ran a different programme.
His teammate Yuki Tsunoda was the only driver to have an incident, if briefly, when he spun at corner four early in the session.
Tsunoda spun out over the exit kerbs before sliding over the run-off area, and was blessed to avoid just a slight brush of the barrier.
Ferrari's the seven-time champion also had a spin, at the final moments of the practice, turning around through the fast downhill Mergulho corner before the final corner on to the start-finish straight.
The veteran wrapped up in P19, trailing team-mate Charles Leclerc.
Norris and Piastri were well clear of the remaining drivers, with Nico Hulkenberg's Sauber in third, 0.619secs off the Australian's time.
The Aston Martin of the Spanish driver was fourth quickest, with the Sauber of Gabriel Bortoleto ahead of the Mercedes of George Russell and the Alpine of Gasly and Williams' Sainz.
