Lando Norris Edges Out Piastri in Brazilian Practice
Lando Norris has outperformed his teammate at each of the last five race weekends.
The McLaren driver edged out fellow driver and championship contender the Australian for the quickest lap in the dying seconds of the practice session at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
Norris, who grabbed the title advantage from Piastri by just one point after taking the win in the Mexican Grand Prix two weeks ago, beat the Australian by a tiny margin of 0.023secs.
Earlier in the session, Piastri had been the quickest of the McLaren pair throughout the hour before the sprint shootout set to begin at 6:30 PM GMT.
The Red Bull star, the only other driver in the championship fight, trailing 36 points Norris, was classified in P17 as his Red Bull team ran a different programme.
His teammate Yuki Tsunoda was the only driver to have an incident, though minor, when he spun at the fourth corner during the early running.
Tsunoda lost control over the exit kerbs before rotating through the escape zone, and was fortunate to avoid just a light touch of the wall.
The Ferrari of the seven-time champion also had a spin, at the final moments of the session, spinning around through the quick descending corner before the last turn on to the start-finish straight.
Hamilton finished practice in 19th place, just behind team-mate the Monegasque driver.
Norris and Piastri were far ahead of the remaining drivers, with the German's Sauber in third, over half a second off Piastri's pace.
Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso was in fourth, with the Sauber of Gabriel Bortoleto ahead of Mercedes' Russell and Alpine's Pierre Gasly and the Williams of Carlos Sainz.
