Lando Norris Leads Piastri in Brazilian Practice Session
The British driver has outscored his teammate at all of the previous five race weekends.
Lando Norris narrowly beat team-mate and title rival the Australian for the fastest time in the closing stages of the practice session at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
Norris, who seized the championship lead from his teammate by one point after taking the win in the Mexican Grand Prix recently, beat the Melbourne-born driver by a tiny margin of 0.023secs.
Until that point, Oscar Piastri had been the quickest of the McLaren pair during the running before sprint qualifying due at the evening session.
The Red Bull star, the other racer in the championship fight, lying with a 36-point deficit Norris, ended up in 17th place as his Red Bull team followed a unique setup.
His teammate Yuki Tsunoda was the only driver to have an incident, though minor, when he spun at the fourth corner soon after starting.
Tsunoda lost control over the exit kerbs before rotating through the gravel trap, and was blessed to get away with just a minor contact of the wall.
Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton also had a spin, at the conclusion of the session, turning around through the quick descending Mergulho corner before the final corner on to the start-finish straight.
Hamilton ended the session in P19, just behind teammate the Monegasque driver.
The McLaren pair were significantly quicker of the remaining drivers, with Nico Hulkenberg's car third fastest, over half a second behind the Australian's time.
The Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso was fourth quickest, with the Sauber of Bortoleto ahead of the Mercedes of Russell and the Alpine of Gasly and the Williams of Sainz.
