Lando Norris Leads Piastri in Sao Paulo Practice Session
Lando Norris has beaten Oscar Piastri at all of the past five grands prix.
The McLaren driver edged out team-mate and championship contender Oscar Piastri for the fastest time in the closing stages of practice at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
Norris, who took the title advantage from Piastri by one point after his victory in Mexico City recently, outpaced the Melbourne-born driver by a tiny margin of 0.023secs.
Before then, Oscar Piastri had been the quickest of the McLaren pair during the running before the sprint shootout set to begin at the evening session.
Max Verstappen, the only other driver in the points battle, trailing with a 36-point deficit Norris, was classified in P17 as his team ran a alternative strategy.
Verstappen's team-mate Yuki Tsunoda was the sole competitor to have an incident, albeit lightly, when he rotated at Turn Four soon after starting.
The Japanese slid over the curbs on exit before spinning across the escape zone, and was lucky to avoid just a slight brush of the fence.
Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton also spun, at the final moments of the session, rotating twice through the quick descending Mergulho turn approaching the final corner on to the pit straight.
The veteran ended the session in P19, just behind team-mate the Monegasque driver.
The McLaren pair were significantly quicker of the remaining drivers, with the German's car third fastest, 0.619 seconds slower than Piastri's best.
Aston Martin's the Spanish driver was fourth fastest, with the Sauber of Gabriel Bortoleto fifth from Mercedes' Russell and Alpine's Pierre Gasly and the Williams of Sainz.
