Lando Norris Tops Piastri in Brazilian Practice
Lando Norris has outperformed his teammate at all of the last five grands prix.
The McLaren driver narrowly beat team-mate and title rival the Australian for the fastest time in the closing stages of practice at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
The British racer, who seized the title advantage from his teammate by a single point after his victory in Mexico City recently, topped the Melbourne-born driver by 0.023 seconds.
Earlier in the session, Piastri had been the fastest McLaren driver throughout the hour before the sprint shootout set to begin at the evening session.
The Red Bull star, the only other driver in the points battle, sitting 36 points behind Norris, ended up in P17 as his Red Bull team followed a unique setup.
His teammate Yuki Tsunoda was the only driver to have an incident, albeit lightly, when he rotated at the fourth corner during the early running.
Tsunoda lost control over the exit kerbs before spinning across the run-off area, and was blessed to avoid just a minor contact of the wall.
Ferrari's the seven-time champion also lost it, at the very end of the session, spinning around through the high-speed Mergulho turn approaching the final bend on to the main straight.
The veteran wrapped up in 19th place, just behind team-mate the Monegasque driver.
The McLaren pair were far ahead of the rest of the field, with the German's Sauber third fastest, over half a second off Piastri's pace.
Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso was fourth fastest, with Sauber's Bortoleto fifth from Mercedes' George Russell and Alpine's Gasly and Williams' Carlos Sainz.
