Norris Leads Piastri in Brazilian Practice

McLaren drivers in action

The British driver has beaten his teammate at all of the last five grands prix.

Lando Norris just pipped team-mate and title rival the Australian for the fastest time in the final moments of practice at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.

The British racer, who grabbed the points lead from Piastri by a single point after winning in Mexico City a fortnight back, topped the Melbourne-born driver by a tiny margin of 0.023secs.

Before then, Oscar Piastri had been the fastest McLaren driver for most of the session before sprint qualifying due at 6:30 PM GMT.

Max Verstappen, the other racer in the championship fight, sitting 36 points behind Norris, was classified in 17th place as his team ran a different programme.

His teammate Yuki Tsunoda was the only driver to have an incident, though minor, when he rotated at corner four early in the session.

The Japanese lost control over the track edges before rotating through the gravel trap, and was fortunate to avoid just a light touch of the barrier.

The Ferrari of the seven-time champion also spun, at the conclusion of the session, rotating twice through the quick descending Mergulho corner approaching the final corner on to the start-finish straight.

The veteran ended the session in 19th place, just behind teammate the Monegasque driver.

The McLaren pair were significantly quicker of the rest of the field, with the German's car P3, over half a second slower than Piastri's best.

The Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso was fourth quickest, with Sauber's Bortoleto ahead of Mercedes' George Russell and the Alpine of Gasly and the Williams of Carlos Sainz.

Andrew Day
Andrew Day

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