Sergio Perez topped the timesheet of Friday's single practice session at Interlagos, the Red Bull driver edging Ferrari's Charles Leclerc by just 0.004s.
It was tight at the front between the front-runners, with Max Verstappen's best lap slower relative to his Red Bull teammate by just 0.008s.
But the spread between the top-ten was equally close, with just 0.614s separating the field.
Behind the leading trio, Carlos Sainz, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell completed the top-six.
On Friday morning in Sao Paulo, weather forecasts for this weekend's penultimate round of racing were still predicting overcast skies and rain on all three days.
But drivers took to a dry track at the start of FP1, the single work session before this afternoon's qualifying that will set the grid for tomorrow's third and final Sprint event of 2022.
And the importance of the 60-minute opening practice compelled everyone to promptly get down to business at the outset, including Lando Norris who was feeling under the weather on Thursday but appeared fit and well on Friday morning.
After the usual flurry of installation laps, Alfa Romeo's Valtteri Bottas and then Verstappen assumed the early lead, the Dutchman setting the first benchmark at 1m13.646s running on the hard tyre.
Verstappen's teammate Sergio Perez was the first driver to switch to Pirelli's soft rubber, which swiftly carried the Mexican to the top by a comfortable margin as he lowered the best time to 1m11.853.
By the session's halfway mark, a soft-shod Verstappen had followed suit, although he remained 0.008s behind his teammate.
Behind the leading Red Bull duo, Leclerc was half a second adrift, with Bottas and Alonso further back. But a good effort on the medium by Sainz allowed the Spaniard to leapfrog the group to move up to third.
Meanwhile, there was little of note to report in the Mercedes camp, where Hamilton and Russell were sat outside of the top ten. But both drivers had yet to run a set of softs.
That was also the case for McLaren boys Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris who appeared to be saving their softs for qualifying.
With ten minutes to go, Mercedes bolted softs on both its cars which propelled Russell up to P3 while Hamilton's effort was undermined by a lock-up on the kerb at Interlagos' Turn 8 that left the Briton P17.
However, Hamilton pressed on and landed in fourth place, just pipped for third by Sainz.
But a flyer by Leclerc landed the Monegasque among the Red Bulls, the Ferrari driver splitting Perez and Verstappen by 0.004s, with Sainz, Hamilton and Russell completing the top six.
Sebastian Vettel and Mick Schumacher's late efforts were rewarded with an impressive P7 and P8 while Bottas and Pierre Gasly rounded off the top ten.
Among the laggards in the session were the two Alpines, with Alonso and Ocon concluding their session P11 and P13, while Norris and Ricciardo, who attempted no runs on the softs, were left a lowly P15 and P20.
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