Lando Norris Leads Piastri in Sao Paulo Practice Session
The British driver has outscored his teammate at all of the past five race weekends.
Lando Norris just pipped team-mate and championship contender the Australian for the top spot in the closing stages of the practice session at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
Norris, who took the championship lead from his teammate by a single point after his victory in the Mexican Grand Prix a fortnight back, outpaced the Australian by a tiny margin of 0.023secs.
Before then, Piastri had been the fastest McLaren driver for most of the session before the sprint shootout set to begin at 18:30 GMT.
The Red Bull star, the other racer in the points battle, sitting 36 points Norris, was classified in 17th position as his team ran a different programme.
Verstappen's team-mate Yuki Tsunoda was the only driver to crash, though minor, when he lost control at Turn Four soon after starting.
Tsunoda spun out over the track edges before rotating through the gravel trap, and was blessed to avoid just a minor contact of the wall.
The Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton also had a spin, at the conclusion of the session, rotating twice through the fast downhill Mergulho turn approaching the last turn on to the start-finish straight.
The veteran wrapped up in P19, one place behind team-mate Charles Leclerc.
The McLaren drivers were far ahead of the rest of the field, with Nico Hulkenberg's car in third, over half a second slower than the Australian's time.
The Aston Martin of the Spanish driver was fourth fastest, with Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto fifth from Mercedes' Russell and the Alpine of Pierre Gasly and Williams' Carlos Sainz.
