Lando Norris Leads Piastri in Sao Paulo Practice
The British driver has outscored his teammate at all of the last five race weekends.
The McLaren driver just pipped fellow driver and title rival Oscar Piastri for the fastest time in the final moments of practice at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
Norris, who took the championship lead from his teammate by one point after taking the win in the Mexican Grand Prix recently, beat the Australian by a mere 0.023s.
Until that point, Oscar Piastri had been the leading McLaren during the running before the sprint shootout set to begin at 18:30 GMT.
Max Verstappen, the other racer in realistic title contention, sitting 36 points behind Norris, was classified in P17 as his team opted for a different programme.
His teammate Yuki Tsunoda was the only driver to have an incident, if briefly, when he lost control at corner four early in the session.
Tsunoda slid over the track edges before sliding over the gravel trap, and was lucky to get away with just a minor contact of the fence.
Ferrari's the seven-time champion also had a spin, at the conclusion of the session, turning around through the fast downhill Mergulho turn approaching the last turn on to the pit straight.
Hamilton ended the session in 19th, one place behind team-mate the Monegasque driver.
The McLaren pair were significantly quicker of the rest of the field, with the German's car P3, over half a second behind Piastri's pace.
Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso was fourth fastest, with Sauber's Bortoleto fifth from the Mercedes of George Russell and the Alpine of Pierre Gasly and Williams' Carlos Sainz.