Lando Norris Leads Piastri in Brazilian Practice

The McLaren driver narrowly beat team-mate and title rival Oscar Piastri for the top spot in the dying seconds of practice at the Brazilian Grand Prix.

Norris, who seized the title advantage from Piastri by one point after winning in the Mexican Grand Prix recently, beat the Australian by a tiny margin of 0.023secs.

Before then, Oscar Piastri had been the fastest McLaren driver throughout the hour before sprint qualifying set to begin at 6:30 PM GMT.

The Red Bull star, the sole remaining contender in the championship fight, trailing 36 points behind behind Norris, was classified in P17 as his Red Bull team followed a different programme.

Verstappen's team-mate Yuki Tsunoda was the only driver to go off, if briefly, when he rotated at the fourth corner soon after starting.

Tsunoda lost control over the exit kerbs before spinning across the run-off area, and was blessed to get away with just a minor contact of the wall.

The Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton also spun, at the final moments of the session, turning around through the fast downhill corner approaching the last turn on to the start-finish straight.

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

The McLaren pair were significantly quicker of the rest of the field, with Nico Hulkenberg's Sauber in third, 0.619 seconds off the Australian's time.

The Aston Martin of the Spanish driver was fourth quickest, with Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto ahead of Mercedes' Russell and the Alpine of Gasly and the Williams of Carlos Sainz.