Norris Edges Out Piastri in Brazilian Practice Session
The British driver has outscored Oscar Piastri at all of the previous five race weekends.
Lando Norris just pipped team-mate and championship contender Oscar Piastri for the top spot in the closing stages of practice at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
The British racer, who seized the championship lead from Piastri by a single point after his victory in Mexico City two weeks ago, topped the Melbourne-born driver by a tiny margin of 0.023secs.
Before then, Piastri had been the fastest McLaren driver for most of the session before sprint qualifying due at 18:30 GMT.
The Red Bull star, the sole remaining contender in realistic title contention, trailing 36 points behind Norris, was classified in P17 as his Red Bull team followed 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 early in the session.
The Japanese slid over the track edges before spinning across the escape zone, and was lucky to escape with just a light touch of the wall.
Ferrari's the seven-time champion also spun, at the final moments of the session, spinning around through the quick descending Mergulho turn before the final corner on to the start-finish straight.
The veteran ended the session in 19th, trailing teammate Charles Leclerc.
Norris and Piastri were significantly quicker of the remaining drivers, with the German's Sauber in third, 0.619 seconds behind Piastri's best.
Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso was in fourth, with Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto fifth from Mercedes' Russell and Alpine's Gasly and Williams' Carlos Sainz.