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Lando Norris just pipped fellow driver and championship contender Oscar Piastri for the top spot 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 just one point after his victory in the Mexican Grand Prix a fortnight back, outpaced the Melbourne-born driver by a tiny margin of 0.023secs.

Until that point, Piastri had been the leading McLaren for most of the session before the sprint shootout set to begin at 6:30 PM GMT.

The Red Bull star, the sole remaining contender in the points battle, trailing 36 points behind behind Norris, finished in P17 as his Red Bull team ran a different programme.

Verstappen's team-mate the Japanese driver was the only driver to crash, if briefly, when he spun at Turn Four during the early running.

Tsunoda lost control over the track edges before rotating through the run-off area, and was lucky to escape with just a slight brush of the wall.

The Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton also spun, at the final moments of the session, turning around through the high-speed corner leading to the final corner on to the start-finish straight.

The seven-time champion finished practice in 19th, trailing team-mate Charles Leclerc.

The McLaren pair were far ahead of the rest of the field, with the German's Sauber in third, over half a second off the Australian's time.

The Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso was fourth quickest, with Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto ahead of the Mercedes of Russell and Alpine's Gasly and the Williams of Sainz.