For the sixth time in history and for the first time since the 2019 Japanese Grand Prix, qualifying and the race took place on the same day, a Sunday. Lando Norris and George Russell had experienced the last time, unlike Yuki Tsunoda who arrived in F1 in 2021.
“I quickly left on Saturday evening when we were told that the qualification took place at 7:30 a.m.” Norris revealed. “I think my alarm was on at 5:10 a.m. It's not very pleasant to have to set it in the morning. But I think I fell asleep at 9 p.m. I had my best sleep of the whole week, at Which I didn’t expect.”
“As I've said many times before, I'm not used to eating on Sundays. I don't drink coffee either, so I had nothing to motivate me. Maybe that's because I had a bit of a slow start. I ate a Nutella sandwich, and that's it. Nothing much different. I probably expected worse.
“But I think as soon as you get in the car, your brain kicks in and you're kind of in racing mode. The adrenaline is pumping. So it's changed a little bit, for sure. Normally you would have had nice poached eggs on toast but this morning the Nutella sandwich was enough.”
George Russell admitted that he was also disturbed by this very rare timing: “It's really weird now because after qualifying it feels like it's the afternoon. You look at your watch, it's 9:30 in the morning.”
“But yes, like Lando, I didn't have breakfast. I had my usual coffee before, which, with an empty stomach, made the start of Q1 a bit difficult. So I will for the next time, during qualifying on Sunday morning.”
Yuki Tsunoda revealed that he drank coffee to prepare himself to be in shape so early, and joked that it was thanks to this that he achieved his best career qualifying performance: “Yes, I had the best qualifying of my entire career, so I would prefer that qualifying be at 7:30 every time.”
“But I expected, I mean, straight away, Q1, I had a good pace. So the preparation probably went well. I drank a lot of coffee, a lot of caffeine. I got a little too excited in Q3, but it was good.”
