It was a wet and chaotic qualifying session this morning at Autódromo José Carlos Pace. Torrential rain on Saturday afternoon led to Qualifying being postponed to the following morning.
The rare Sunday qualifying was hectic with a total of 5 cars crashing out during its run. Both Williams, Astons Martins as well as Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz had spun off the wet track resulting in their early end.
The session wasn’t as disappointing for all drivers as McLaren’s Lando Norris found himself on pole for the seventh time this season. He topped the charts with a laptime of 1:23.405. However, he wasn’t the only Briton who left the dramatic session with a smile as his fellow 2019 rookie Mercedes’ George Russell found himself completing the front row.
The 2-time race winner qualified P2 with a lap time of 1:23.578, a mere 0.173s off pole position.
This is the best result from Mercedes all weekend long as both drivers were struggling with their cars, and Lewis Hamilton was knocked out in Q1. Russell himself had qualified P6 during Sprint Qualifying on Friday and finished the Sprint race P6 the following day.
Despite their struggles, the 2022 Brazil Grand Prix winner found himself excited to return to the track especially given Saturday’s early end and the enthusiastic cheers of the local crowd.
“Yeah, absolutely. I mean, always love coming to Sao Paulo. Obviously, such great memories from a few years ago [winning his first Grand Prix].
“And after yesterday, it was so tough just waiting. And all the fans stayed out. And honestly, I was so impressed coming into the track at six o’clock. Everybody was queuing. Everybody wanted to be here and really pleased to be lining up here, too.”
When asked how he felt about Qualifying being on a Sunday instead of the usual Saturday, it was pure nostalgia for the 26-year-old as he recounted the early morning sessions from his karting days.
He even suggested fully implementing the change for the future in Formula One.
“I loved it, to be honest. Reminds me of the karting days, you know, waking up, having breakfast in your race suit and just going out there and driving.
“So yeah, maybe you guys need to have a bit of a think about the format moving forward. Maybe this is the one, qualifying Sunday morning.
“As I said, it was a great session, but let’s see what we can do in the race.”
