How exactly do drivers spend their time once they’ve tapped out of Formula 1’s paddock gates and wandered off into the big wide world after a hard day’s driving and several hours of debriefing?

Do our engineers whisk them back off to our secret laboratory and strap them into our incubation chambers, safe from harm’s way, or is it something a little more ordinary, like getting a box of chicken nuggets?

Sleep, surely? Given they must be exhausted from driving at speeds of more than 200mph. It’s a surprise they can even keep their eyes open to review the numbers with the team after the session, let alone make it back to their hotel for a good night’s sleep.

But that’s not quite the case. The adrenaline of driving a Formula 1 car and the subsequent time spent staring at a screen can make it rather difficult to shut off and drift off. Questions pinging around their brains as they dissect the day’s action and questioning where that extra hundredth could have come from, or what might have happened had they taken a corner slightly differently.

So, instead of trying to sleep straight away, drivers will find something to occupy their minds while they attempt to shut off enough to sleep. Unsurprisingly, Netflix and YouTube are pretty often the answer.

“It can be hard if it's been a very good day. Equally, if it's been a very bad day, it can be hard for opposite reasons,” Oscar explains. Using the British Grand Prix as an example, where Oscar qualified third on his first weekend with the upgraded MCL60, he says. “Saturday night after Silverstone, I actually slept quite well, which was a surprise.”

On a Saturday after qualifying, Lando and Oscar will clamber out of their MCL60, freshen up a pinch and head out for their media commitments with broadcasters and the written media. They’ll then return to the Team Hub for dinner with the team, cooked by our in-house chef.

They’ll then head into a debrief to go over the data from qualifying and discuss set-up, performance and strategy, which will typically finish around 21:00, depending on the location of the grand prix. Once the driver and engineers are happy, they’ll clock off for the night and return to the hotel.

“After that, it's pretty much spending some time to yourself for 15, 20 minutes, have a shower, get ready for bed and then try and get as good a night's sleep, if you can.

“You try and not think about racing. You try to turn your brain off for a bit because it's been busy all weekend until that point. You try and switch off, whether that is watching YouTube, Netflix, or spending time with your girlfriend if she's there, whatever it might be, to get your mind off racing. Lily [Oscar’s girlfriend] and I have been watching Killing Eve on Netflix, but it can be just random YouTube videos.”

What have you watched, we ask? “I watched the MH370 documentary recently, and I quite like my true-crime documentaries and stuff, so sometimes I watch them.

“I usually find Sunday night is worse for sleep. You don't usually have anything planned for Monday, and you're still full of adrenaline from the race. So, Sunday night is usually a pretty short night of sleep, but on Saturdays, I'm getting better at sleeping through the night.”

Sundays are slightly different, given it’s the end of a weekend. The post-session process remains similar, with media commitments and an in-depth debrief. Interviews may last longer, but debriefs are often shorter as they’ll have time to review the data in more detail during the week. Depending on the race and the time of their flights, they’ll then either have dinner at the track and dart off to the airport or go for a meal out if time – and the result – allows.

Thanks everyone for the kind messages 👊🧡 Enjoying Tokyo pic.twitter.com/uj27ppwrCA

— Oscar Piastri (@OscarPiastri) September 20, 2023

In keeping with the British Grand Prix example, as it was the team’s home race, Oscar says he could drive home at a time of his choosing following the race, instead of being stuck to a flight schedule.

“Silverstone's unique because, for lots of the team, it’s a home race, and for me, it's basically a second home race. I drove home after Silverstone, but we usually fly home after races.

“Sunday night after Silverstone, I was with Lily, my girlfriend, and we stopped at the Beckett’s motorway services and had fast food for dinner, as we were knackered by then. It was very glamorous… We had a 10-pack of nuggets, and I think I had a chicken caesar wrap or something like that.”

On the Monday after a race, the team will all head straight home for a good night’s sleep, returning to the factory on Tuesday for further debriefing, before attention switches to the following race. Whereas, if they're in the middle of a double or a triple-header, then they'll power through and head straight to the next country, usually using Monday as a travel day. 

Laundry also has to be done, of course. McLaren will handle his racing kit, while Oscar will take home his own personal clothes to wash. And no, he no longer uses the oven to dry them, as he once showed on Twitter during his junior racing days. “No, no, not anymore,” he laughs. “I have a [tumble] dryer now.”  

After that, it’s a case of rinse and repeat, with the next grand prix never far away.