Norris Tops Oscar Piastri in Sao Paulo Practice Session
The British driver has outscored Oscar Piastri at all of the previous five grands prix.
The McLaren driver narrowly beat fellow driver and title rival the Australian for the quickest lap in the dying seconds of practice at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
Norris, who grabbed the points lead from Piastri by just one point after winning in Mexico City two weeks ago, outpaced the Melbourne-born driver by 0.023 seconds.
Before then, Piastri had been the fastest McLaren driver throughout the hour before the sprint shootout due at 18:30 GMT.
The Red Bull star, the only other driver in realistic title contention, lying 36 points behind Norris, was classified in P17 as his team followed a different programme.
Verstappen's team-mate the Japanese driver was the only driver to crash, if briefly, when he rotated at the fourth corner early in the session.
The Japanese slid over the track edges before spinning across the gravel trap, and was lucky to get away with just a slight brush of the fence.
The Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton also had a spin, at the final moments of the practice, rotating twice through the high-speed corner before the last turn on to the start-finish straight.
Hamilton wrapped up in 19th place, one place behind team-mate the Monegasque driver.
The McLaren drivers were significantly quicker of the other competitors, with the German's car in third, over half a second off Piastri's pace.
The Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso was fourth fastest, with Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto fifth from Mercedes' Russell and the Alpine of Gasly and Williams' Carlos Sainz.
