Lando Norris Leads Piastri in Sao Paulo Practice
The British driver has outperformed Oscar Piastri at all of the last five grands prix.
The McLaren driver narrowly beat team-mate and title rival the Australian for the top spot in the dying seconds of the practice session at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
Norris, who took the championship lead from Piastri by a single point after winning in Mexico City recently, topped the Melbourne-born driver by 0.023 seconds.
Until that point, Piastri had been the leading McLaren throughout the hour before the sprint shootout scheduled for 6:30 PM GMT.
The Red Bull star, the only other driver in the championship fight, sitting 36 points behind Norris, finished in 17th place as his team opted for a different programme.
Verstappen's team-mate the Japanese driver was the only driver to have an incident, if briefly, when he spun at Turn Four soon after starting.
The Japanese slid over the curbs on exit before sliding over the gravel trap, and was fortunate to get away with just a light touch of the fence.
The Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton also spun, at the conclusion of the session, rotating twice through the high-speed Mergulho corner before the final bend on to the pit straight.
The seven-time champion ended the session in 19th place, one place behind teammate the Monegasque driver.
Norris and Piastri were significantly quicker of the other competitors, with the German's Sauber third fastest, 0.619 seconds off the Australian's time.
The Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso was in fourth, with the Sauber of Gabriel Bortoleto ahead of the Mercedes of George Russell and Alpine's Pierre Gasly and Williams' Sainz.
