Lando Norris Leads Oscar Piastri in Sao Paulo Practice
Lando Norris has outperformed his teammate at all of the last five grands prix.
The McLaren driver just pipped fellow driver and championship contender the Australian for the fastest time in the final moments of practice at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
The British racer, who grabbed the championship lead from his teammate by just one point after his victory in the Mexican Grand Prix two weeks ago, topped the Australian 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 18:30 GMT.
Max Verstappen, the sole remaining contender in realistic title contention, lying 36 points behind Norris, finished in 17th place as his team followed a unique setup.
His teammate the Japanese driver was the sole competitor to crash, if briefly, when he rotated at corner four early in the session.
Tsunoda slid over the track edges before spinning across the run-off area, and was lucky to escape with just a minor contact of the fence.
The Ferrari of the seven-time champion also had a spin, at the very end of the practice, spinning around through the quick descending Mergulho turn leading to the final bend on to the pit straight.
The seven-time champion finished practice in P19, trailing team-mate the Monegasque driver.
Norris and Piastri were significantly quicker of the rest of the field, with the German's car P3, 0.619 seconds slower than Piastri's pace.
The Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso was fourth fastest, with Sauber's Bortoleto in front of the Mercedes of George Russell and the Alpine of Pierre Gasly and Williams' Sainz.
