Lando Norris Leads Piastri in Sao Paulo Practice Session
The British driver has outscored Oscar Piastri at each of the last five race weekends.
Lando Norris just pipped fellow driver and title rival Oscar Piastri for the fastest time in the dying seconds of practice at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
The British racer, who grabbed the championship lead from his teammate by one point after his victory in Mexico City recently, beat the Australian by a tiny margin of 0.023secs.
Earlier in the session, Piastri had been the fastest McLaren driver throughout the hour before sprint qualifying scheduled for 6:30 PM GMT.
The Red Bull star, the sole remaining contender in the points battle, trailing 36 points behind Norris, finished in 17th place as his Red Bull team followed a unique setup.
Verstappen's team-mate Yuki Tsunoda was the only driver to have an incident, if briefly, when he rotated at Turn Four soon after starting.
Tsunoda slid over the exit kerbs before rotating through the run-off area, and was lucky to get away with just a light touch of the fence.
The Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton also had a spin, at the final moments of the session, spinning around through the fast downhill Mergulho turn before the final bend on to the pit straight.
The veteran ended the session in P19, one place behind teammate the Monegasque driver.
The McLaren drivers were significantly quicker of the rest of the field, with Nico Hulkenberg's Sauber in third, 0.619 seconds behind the Australian's time.
Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso was in fourth, with Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto fifth from Mercedes' George Russell and the Alpine of Pierre Gasly and the Williams of Sainz.
