Lando Norris Leads Piastri in Brazilian Practice Session
Lando Norris has outperformed his teammate at all of the last five grands prix.
Lando Norris edged out fellow driver and title rival Oscar Piastri for the quickest lap in the dying seconds of practice at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
Norris, who seized the title advantage from Piastri by one point after his victory in the Mexican Grand Prix recently, topped the Melbourne-born driver by 0.023 seconds.
Earlier in the session, Piastri had been the leading McLaren throughout the hour before sprint qualifying set to begin at 18:30 GMT.
The Red Bull star, the sole remaining contender in the points battle, trailing with a 36-point deficit behind Norris, was classified in P17 as his team followed a unique setup.
His teammate Yuki Tsunoda was the only driver to have an incident, if briefly, when he lost control at corner four soon after starting.
The Japanese lost control over the track edges before spinning across the run-off area, and was fortunate to get away with just a minor contact of the fence.
Ferrari's the seven-time champion also spun, at the very end of the session, turning around through the high-speed corner approaching the last turn on to the start-finish straight.
Hamilton ended the session in 19th place, just behind teammate the Monegasque driver.
Norris and Piastri were well clear of the remaining drivers, with the German's Sauber third fastest, 0.619secs slower than Piastri's pace.
The Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso was fourth fastest, with Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto fifth from the Mercedes of George Russell and Alpine's Gasly and the Williams of Sainz.
