Norris Tops Piastri in Sao Paulo Practice Session
The British driver has outscored Oscar Piastri at all of the last five race weekends.
The McLaren driver narrowly beat fellow driver and title rival Oscar Piastri for the fastest time in the final moments of practice at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
Norris, who grabbed the title advantage from his teammate by just one point after his victory in the Mexican Grand Prix recently, outpaced the Australian by a mere 0.023s.
Earlier in the session, Piastri had been the quickest of the McLaren pair throughout the hour before sprint qualifying due at the evening session.
The Red Bull star, the only other driver in the points battle, lying 36 points behind Norris, was classified in 17th place as his team ran a different programme.
Verstappen's team-mate Yuki Tsunoda was the only driver to have an incident, if briefly, when he spun at Turn Four early in the session.
Tsunoda lost control over the curbs on exit before spinning across the run-off area, and was fortunate to avoid just a slight brush of the fence.
The Ferrari of the seven-time champion also spun, at the conclusion of the practice, rotating twice through the quick descending corner leading to the final bend on to the pit straight.
Hamilton ended the session in 19th place, trailing teammate the Monegasque driver.
The McLaren drivers were far ahead of the rest of the field, with Nico Hulkenberg's car P3, over half a second slower than the Australian's time.
The Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso was fourth quickest, with Sauber's Bortoleto fifth from the Mercedes of Russell and Alpine's Gasly and the Williams of Sainz.
