Norris Tops Piastri in Sao Paulo Practice Session
The British driver has outscored his teammate at each of the last five race weekends.
Lando Norris just pipped fellow driver and championship contender the Australian for the quickest lap in the dying seconds of practice at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
Norris, who grabbed the points lead from his teammate by just one point after his victory in the Mexican Grand Prix recently, beat the Australian by a mere 0.023s.
Until that point, Oscar Piastri had been the fastest McLaren driver throughout the hour before sprint qualifying due at 6:30 PM GMT.
Max Verstappen, the sole remaining contender in the championship fight, sitting with a 36-point deficit behind Norris, ended up in 17th place as his Red Bull team followed a different programme.
His teammate Yuki Tsunoda was the only driver to have an incident, though minor, when he lost control at Turn Four early in the session.
Tsunoda spun out over the track edges before rotating through the escape zone, and was blessed to get away with just a minor contact of the wall.
The Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton also lost it, at the conclusion of the practice, rotating twice through the quick descending Mergulho corner before the final bend on to the main straight.
The seven-time champion ended the session in 19th place, trailing team-mate Charles Leclerc.
The McLaren drivers were well clear of the rest of the field, with the German's car in third, 0.619secs slower than Piastri's pace.
The Aston Martin of the Spanish driver was fourth fastest, with Sauber's Bortoleto fifth from Mercedes' George Russell and Alpine's Pierre Gasly and Williams' Carlos Sainz.
