Lando Norris Edges Out Piastri in Brazilian Practice
Lando Norris has outperformed his teammate at each of the previous five race weekends.
The McLaren driver edged out team-mate and title rival Oscar Piastri for the quickest lap in the dying seconds of the practice session at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
Norris, who took the championship lead from Piastri by one point after winning in the Mexican Grand Prix a fortnight back, topped the Melbourne-born driver by a mere 0.023s.
Before then, Piastri had been the quickest of the McLaren pair throughout the hour before the sprint shootout scheduled for 6:30 PM GMT.
Max Verstappen, the only other driver in the points battle, trailing 36 points behind behind Norris, finished in 17th place as his team followed a unique setup.
His teammate Yuki Tsunoda was the only driver to have an incident, if briefly, when he spun at corner four soon after starting.
Tsunoda spun out over the curbs on exit before rotating through the escape zone, and was fortunate to escape with just a slight brush 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 corner on to the start-finish straight.
Hamilton wrapped up in 19th place, just behind team-mate Charles Leclerc.
The McLaren drivers were far ahead of the rest of the field, with the German's car P3, 0.619secs slower than the Australian's time.
Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso was fourth quickest, with Sauber's Bortoleto fifth from the Mercedes of Russell and Alpine's Pierre Gasly and Williams' Carlos Sainz.
