Lando Norris Edges Out Piastri in Brazilian Practice
Lando Norris has outscored his teammate at all of the past five race weekends.
The McLaren driver narrowly beat team-mate and championship contender the Australian for the quickest lap in the dying seconds of practice at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
The British racer, who grabbed the points lead from his teammate by one point after winning in the Mexican Grand Prix recently, beat the Melbourne-born driver by a tiny margin of 0.023secs.
Until that point, Piastri had been the fastest McLaren driver during the running before the sprint shootout scheduled for 6:30 PM GMT.
Max Verstappen, the other racer in the points battle, trailing 36 points behind Norris, finished in P17 as his team opted for a different programme.
His teammate Yuki Tsunoda was the sole competitor to go off, though minor, when he rotated at Turn Four soon after starting.
Tsunoda slid over the curbs on exit before rotating through the run-off area, and was fortunate to avoid just a slight brush of the barrier.
Ferrari's the seven-time champion also spun, at the very end of the session, rotating twice through the high-speed corner leading to the final bend on to the start-finish straight.
Hamilton finished practice in 19th place, trailing team-mate Charles Leclerc.
Norris and Piastri were significantly quicker of the other competitors, with Nico Hulkenberg's Sauber P3, over half a second slower than Piastri's pace.
The Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso was fourth quickest, with the Sauber of Gabriel Bortoleto fifth from the Mercedes of Russell and the Alpine of Pierre Gasly and Williams' Sainz.
