Lando Norris Leads Piastri in Brazilian Practice
The British driver has outscored his teammate at each of the last five race weekends.
The McLaren driver narrowly beat fellow driver and title rival Oscar Piastri for the fastest time in the closing stages of the practice session at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
Norris, who took the points lead from Piastri by one point after winning in the Mexican Grand Prix a fortnight back, outpaced the Melbourne-born driver by a tiny margin of 0.023secs.
Until that point, Oscar Piastri had been the quickest of the McLaren pair for most of the session before sprint qualifying scheduled for 18:30 GMT.
The Red Bull star, the other racer in realistic title contention, trailing with a 36-point deficit behind Norris, finished in P17 as his team ran a different programme.
Verstappen's team-mate Yuki Tsunoda was the sole competitor to have an incident, if briefly, when he rotated at the fourth corner soon after starting.
Tsunoda spun out over the track edges before spinning across the run-off area, and was fortunate to escape with just a light touch of the fence.
Ferrari's the seven-time champion also spun, at the conclusion of the practice, rotating twice through the quick descending Mergulho corner approaching the last turn on to the pit straight.
The veteran wrapped up in 19th, just behind team-mate the Monegasque driver.
The McLaren drivers were well clear of the remaining drivers, with the German's car P3, 0.619secs off Piastri's pace.
Aston Martin's the Spanish driver was in fourth, with Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto ahead of the Mercedes of Russell and Alpine's Pierre Gasly and the Williams of Carlos Sainz.
