Lando Norris Tops Oscar Piastri in Sao Paulo Practice

The McLaren driver narrowly beat fellow driver and title rival the Australian for the fastest time in the final moments of the practice session at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.

The British racer, who grabbed the championship lead from his teammate by a single point after his victory in the Mexican Grand Prix two weeks ago, outpaced the Melbourne-born driver by 0.023 seconds.

Before then, Piastri had been the leading McLaren for most of the session before the sprint shootout scheduled for 6:30 PM GMT.

The Red Bull star, the only other driver in the points battle, lying 36 points behind Norris, was classified in 17th place as his Red Bull team ran a different programme.

Verstappen's team-mate the Japanese driver was the only driver to have an incident, though minor, when he spun at Turn Four soon after starting.

Tsunoda slid over the track edges before spinning across the run-off area, and was lucky to get away with just a slight brush of the wall.

Ferrari's the seven-time champion also lost it, at the final moments of the session, rotating twice through the quick descending Mergulho corner before the last turn on to the start-finish straight.

The seven-time champion ended the session in 19th place, trailing teammate the Monegasque driver.

Norris and Piastri were significantly quicker of the other competitors, with the German's Sauber in third, over half a second slower than the Australian's time.

Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso was fourth fastest, with Sauber's Bortoleto fifth from the Mercedes of George Russell and Alpine's Pierre Gasly and the Williams of Carlos Sainz.