Lando Norris Leads Piastri in Brazilian Practice Session
The British driver has outscored Oscar Piastri at each of the last five race weekends.
The McLaren driver just pipped team-mate and title rival Oscar Piastri for the fastest time in the dying seconds of practice at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
The British racer, who seized the title advantage from his teammate by one point after taking the win in Mexico City a fortnight back, outpaced the Australian by a tiny margin of 0.023secs.
Before then, Piastri had been the quickest of the McLaren pair 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 with a 36-point deficit behind Norris, finished in 17th position as his team followed a different programme.
Verstappen's team-mate Yuki Tsunoda was the only driver to have an incident, albeit lightly, when he spun at corner four soon after starting.
Tsunoda slid over the track edges before rotating through the gravel trap, and was lucky to get away with just a slight brush of the wall.
The Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton also had a spin, at the conclusion of the practice, rotating twice through the high-speed corner leading to the last turn on to the main straight.
The veteran wrapped up in 19th, trailing teammate Charles Leclerc.
The McLaren drivers were well clear of the rest of the field, with the German's Sauber P3, over half a second off Piastri's pace.
Aston Martin's the Spanish driver was in fourth, with Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto in front of Mercedes' Russell and the Alpine of Pierre Gasly and the Williams of Sainz.
