05 Sep 2026
Norris Leads Piastri in Sao Paulo Practice
The British driver has beaten his teammate at all of the past five race weekends.
The McLaren driver narrowly beat fellow driver and title rival the Australian for the quickest lap in the dying seconds of practice at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
The British racer, who took the points lead from Piastri by just one point after winning in Mexico City a fortnight back, topped the Melbourne-born driver 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 scheduled for 18:30 GMT.
The Red Bull star, the other racer in realistic title contention, lying 36 points Norris, ended up in P17 as his Red Bull team followed a different programme.
His teammate Yuki Tsunoda was the only driver to go off, if briefly, when he rotated at corner four soon after starting.
Tsunoda lost control over the track edges before sliding over the escape zone, and was lucky to escape with just a slight brush of the wall.
The Ferrari of the seven-time champion also lost it, at the conclusion of the practice, turning around through the quick descending Mergulho turn before the final corner on to the main straight.
The veteran finished practice in 19th place, just behind team-mate Charles Leclerc.
Norris and Piastri were significantly quicker of the other competitors, with the German's Sauber P3, over half a second off the Australian's time.
The Aston Martin of the Spanish driver was in fourth, with Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto in front of the Mercedes of George Russell and the Alpine of Gasly and Williams' Carlos Sainz.