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Lando Norris narrowly beat team-mate and championship contender Oscar Piastri for the fastest time in the dying seconds of the practice session at the Brazilian Grand Prix.

Norris, who took the championship lead from Piastri by one point after his victory in the Mexican Grand Prix a fortnight back, outpaced the Melbourne-born driver by 0.023 seconds.

Before then, Piastri had been the fastest McLaren driver during the running before sprint qualifying set to begin at 6:30 PM GMT.

Max Verstappen, the other racer in the points battle, sitting 36 points behind Norris, finished in P17 as his Red Bull team ran a unique setup.

Verstappen's team-mate Yuki Tsunoda was the sole competitor to have an incident, if briefly, when he rotated at the fourth corner soon after starting.

Tsunoda slid over the exit kerbs before rotating through the escape zone, and was lucky to avoid just a minor contact of the barrier.

The Ferrari of the seven-time champion also spun, at the very end of the session, spinning around through the high-speed Mergulho turn before the final corner on to the main straight.

The veteran finished practice in P19, one place behind team-mate the Monegasque driver.

The McLaren drivers were significantly quicker of the other competitors, with the German's Sauber third fastest, 0.619 seconds off the Australian's time.

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