Lando Norris Edges Out Oscar Piastri in Sao Paulo Practice
The British driver has outperformed his teammate at all of the past five grands prix.
The McLaren driver narrowly beat fellow driver and title rival Oscar Piastri for the quickest lap in the closing stages of practice at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
The British racer, who took the championship lead from his teammate by one point after taking the win in the Mexican Grand Prix recently, outpaced the Melbourne-born driver by a tiny margin of 0.023secs.
Until that point, Oscar Piastri had been the fastest McLaren driver for most of the session before sprint qualifying due at the evening session.
The Red Bull star, the sole remaining contender in the points battle, trailing 36 points Norris, ended up in 17th position as his Red Bull team opted for a alternative strategy.
His teammate the Japanese driver was the only driver to have an incident, if briefly, when he spun at corner four soon after starting.
Tsunoda spun out over the track edges before spinning across the gravel trap, and was lucky to escape with just a light touch of the fence.
The Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton also had a spin, at the conclusion of the practice, turning around through the quick descending Mergulho corner leading to the last turn on to the main straight.
The veteran ended the session in 19th place, just behind team-mate the Monegasque driver.
Norris and Piastri were well clear of the remaining drivers, with Nico Hulkenberg's car in third, 0.619 seconds slower than Piastri's best.
The Aston Martin of the Spanish driver was fourth quickest, with Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto in front of Mercedes' Russell and the Alpine of Gasly and Williams' Carlos Sainz.
