Norris Leads Piastri in Brazilian Practice
The British driver has beaten his teammate at all of the previous five grands prix.
The McLaren driver narrowly beat fellow driver and championship contender Oscar Piastri for the quickest lap in the dying seconds of practice at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
The British racer, who seized the championship lead from Piastri by just one point after taking the win in Mexico City two weeks ago, beat the Australian by a tiny margin of 0.023secs.
Until that point, Piastri had been the quickest of the McLaren pair during the running before the sprint shootout set to begin at 18:30 GMT.
The Red Bull star, the other racer in the points battle, lying 36 points behind Norris, ended up in P17 as his team ran a different programme.
Verstappen's team-mate the Japanese driver was the sole competitor to have an incident, if briefly, when he lost control at corner four early in the session.
The Japanese lost control over the exit kerbs before rotating through the gravel trap, and was lucky to escape with just a minor contact of the wall.
Ferrari's the seven-time champion also lost it, at the conclusion of the session, rotating twice through the fast downhill Mergulho corner approaching the last turn on to the main straight.
The seven-time champion finished practice in P19, just behind teammate the Monegasque driver.
The McLaren pair were significantly quicker of the rest of the field, with Nico Hulkenberg's car third fastest, 0.619secs off the Australian's time.
The Aston Martin of the Spanish driver was fourth quickest, with the Sauber of Bortoleto ahead of the Mercedes of Russell and Alpine's Pierre Gasly and Williams' Sainz.
