Lando Norris has beaten his teammate at each of the last five race weekends.
Lando Norris just pipped team-mate and title rival Oscar Piastri for the quickest lap in the dying seconds of the practice session at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
Norris, who seized the title advantage from his teammate by a single point after his victory in the Mexican Grand Prix recently, outpaced the Melbourne-born driver by 0.023 seconds.
Until that point, Piastri had been the quickest of the McLaren pair for most of the session before sprint qualifying set to begin at 6:30 PM GMT.
Max Verstappen, the sole remaining contender in the points battle, sitting with a 36-point deficit behind Norris, finished in P17 as his Red Bull team ran a different programme.
Verstappen's team-mate Yuki Tsunoda was the sole competitor to crash, though minor, when he lost control at corner four early in the session.
Tsunoda slid over the exit kerbs before spinning across the gravel trap, and was lucky to escape with just a minor contact of the wall.
Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton also had a spin, at the very end of the practice, rotating twice through the high-speed Mergulho corner approaching the final bend on to the main straight.
The veteran ended the session 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 P3, 0.619 seconds behind the Australian's time.
The Aston Martin of the Spanish driver was fourth fastest, with the Sauber of Gabriel Bortoleto in front of the Mercedes of Russell and Alpine's Gasly and Williams' Carlos Sainz.
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