Lando Norris was blunt after Thursday’s practice sessions at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, describing McLaren’s speed as "pretty pants" and conceding that a pole‑position challenge looks unlikely. In the second free‑practice period, Norris was a full 1.5 seconds off the pace set by George Russell, with the tight, 90‑degree corners of the Baku street circuit evidently not playing to the strengths of the McLaren chassis. The team arrived in Baku with a substantial aerodynamic upgrade package – new side‑pods, a revised engine cover, an updated diffuser and fresh floor edges – hoping the revisions would translate into immediate on‑track gains.
So far, the changes have not produced the hoped‑for performance boost. "We’re miles off the front‑row pace," Norris admitted. "We’re where we expect to be relative to the rest of the field, but we’re still 1.5 seconds behind the leaders.
Pretty pants," he added, noting that he trails championship leader Kimi Antonelli by 106 points with nine races remaining. When pressed about whether McLaren can close the gap to Mercedes, Norris was cautious.
"I hope so, I have no idea. We’ll see what we can do tonight. The car doesn’t feel terrible, so it’s a bit of a knife‑to‑the‑heart seeing how far off we are," he said.
"I just care about the pace. It’s not very quick at the moment, and I drive whatever car I’m given. I want it to be fast, and right now it isn’t." During the second practice session, Norris aborted a flying lap that, according to telemetry, would probably have placed him within a second of Russell’s best time. Russell topped both practice sessions, underscoring Mercedes’ continued dominance on the high‑speed Baku layout.
McLaren’s chief technical officer Rob Marshall echoed the sentiment that the team is still in a learning phase. "We have a lot of new parts on the car – a lot of learning. You fit the package on and you have to learn how to dial it in, and I don’t think we’re there yet," he explained. "The aero maps look happy, the car is doing what we want it to do.
It’s now a matter of extracting performance from those components." Qualifying is scheduled for Friday at 13:00, with the Grand Prix itself set for Saturday noon, both broadcast live on Sky Sports F1. Although overtaking is possible in Baku, track position remains crucial on this street circuit, and the drivers are aware that any mistake can be costly. Mercedes driver George Russell praised his car’s single‑lap speed, noting that Red Bull and McLaren appeared to be close to his race‑pace performance.
"It’s been a positive first day in Baku. The car felt competitive over a single lap, and our race pace looks closely matched with McLaren and Red Bull," he said.
"I’m sure those gaps will tighten further when we get to qualifying tomorrow." Kimi Antonelli, who suffered a hydraulic leak in the first practice session and then had to replace his power unit before the second session, lost roughly an hour of track time. Despite the setbacks, the championship leader still posted the second‑fastest time in the second practice, only half a second shy of his teammate Russell.
"We tried to do the maximum with what we had. Losing a lot of laps in FP1 and missing half of FP2 is never ideal, especially on a street circuit," Antonelli remarked.
"Overall, I think it was a good recovery. I feel comfortable in the car, a few things to work on, but I’m looking forward to tomorrow." Red Bull’s Max Verstappen remained Mercedes’ closest rival in the practice sessions, yet he was still eight‑tenths of a second slower than the German driver at the end of the day, despite Red Bull introducing their own upgrades for Baku. Isack Hadjar returned to the Red Bull garage for the first time since July after a wrist injury forced him to miss three races.
Confirmed as Verstappen’s teammate for the 2027 season, Hadjar also suffered an engine issue in the first practice session, limiting his running time. Nevertheless, he expressed satisfaction with the limited data.
"It feels good. I had a good feeling.
Not many laps, unfortunately, but this will come. I’m not too worried about the pace," he said. "The new package feels nice – better than when I left it in Budapest." Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton both featured in the top five of each session, but Hamilton, a seven‑time world champion, lamented that the team’s performance on the tyres and on the straights was lacking.
"I felt generally good in the car. The track is awesome to drive. In FP1 I felt very strong and thought we were doing well, but in FP2 the others took another step," Hamilton explained, adding that the team had not changed the car but the competition seemed to improve. "These tyres are really difficult to get working.
You do an out lap and a prep lap and they’re still not in the window, they don’t give you grip. When you do an extra lap they suddenly give you tonnes more grip – it’s a fine line and very hard to get right. Some teams manage it better than others." He also noted a deficit in straight‑line speed compared with Mercedes. "Whether we can close that gap tomorrow, we’ll try to work on tonight.
Otherwise, it will be a fun day," Hamilton said. Ferrari team principal Frédéric Vasseur added that the sessions were hard to interpret because every performance parameter – fuel load, engine mapping, tyre temperature – seemed to have a larger impact than on a typical circuit. "The drivers weren’t very happy with the balance, so we have a lot to do tonight to find a good solution for tomorrow," he said. The weekend schedule continues with a packed program of Formula 2 sprint and feature races, a third practice session for the Grand Prix, and the qualifying showdown that will set the grid for Saturday’s race.
All events will be streamed live on Sky Sports Main Event, with the Azerbaijan Grand Prix serving as the centerpiece of a triple‑header weekend in the 2026 Formula 1 season.