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Lando Norris narrowly beat fellow driver and title rival Oscar Piastri for the fastest time in the closing stages of the practice session at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.

The British racer, who seized the championship lead from his teammate by a single point after winning in the Mexican Grand Prix a fortnight back, outpaced the Melbourne-born driver by a tiny margin of 0.023secs.

Earlier in the session, Oscar Piastri had been the fastest McLaren driver for most of the session before sprint qualifying set to begin at 6:30 PM GMT.

The Red Bull star, the only other driver in the championship fight, lying 36 points behind Norris, was classified in P17 as his team opted for a alternative strategy.

His teammate the Japanese driver was the only driver to have an incident, if briefly, when he lost control at Turn Four during the early running.

Tsunoda spun out over the curbs on exit before sliding over the gravel trap, and was lucky to get away with just a minor contact of the wall.

Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton also had a spin, at the conclusion of the session, rotating twice through the high-speed Mergulho turn approaching the last turn on to the pit straight.

The veteran finished practice in 19th place, one place behind team-mate Charles Leclerc.

The McLaren drivers were far ahead of the rest of the field, with the German's Sauber third fastest, 0.619secs slower than Piastri's best.

Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso was in fourth, with Sauber's Bortoleto in front of Mercedes' Russell and the Alpine of Gasly and Williams' Carlos Sainz.