Lando Norris admitted on Thursday that McLaren’s speed during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix practice sessions was "pretty pants" and that the team is unlikely to fight for pole position this weekend. In the second practice session Norris was a full 1.5 seconds slower than the session leader, George Russell, with the tight, 90-degree corners of the Baku street circuit appearing to expose a weakness in the current McLaren package. The British driver explained that even though McLaren has introduced a substantial upgrade suite for the race – new side‑pods, a revised engine cover, a refreshed diffuser and updated floor edges – the changes have not translated into an immediate performance boost. "We are miles off the pace," Norris said.
"We are where we expect to be relative to the field, but we are still 1.5 seconds away from the front‑runners. Pretty pants." Norris, who trails championship leader Kimi Antonelli by 106 points with nine races remaining, was asked whether McLaren could close the gap to Mercedes in the remaining practice time.
He replied, "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 in the heart when you see how far off you are.
I just care about the pace and we are not very fast. I drive whatever car I get, I just want it to be quick and at the moment it isn’t." During the second practice session Norris aborted a lap that, according to his team, would likely have brought him within a second of Russell’s best time. Russell, who topped both practice sessions, noted that while overtaking is possible in Baku, track position remains crucial on the narrow, high‑speed street circuit. McLaren’s chief technical officer Rob Marshall cautioned that the team is still in the early stages of understanding how the eight new components interact.
"We have a lot of new bits on the car – a lot of learning. You put your package on and you need to learn how to dial it in and I don’t think we are there yet," he said. "The car is doing what we want it to do, the aerodynamic maps look happy.
It’s just a matter of extracting performance." Qualifying is scheduled for Friday at 13:00 local time, with the Grand Prix itself set for Saturday at noon, both events being broadcast live on Sky Sports F1. The weekend’s timetable also includes a series of Formula 2 races and support events, making the Baku weekend a packed triple‑header. Mercedes, meanwhile, enjoyed a solid showing. Russell praised the competitiveness of his car over a single lap and believed the race pace was close to that of both McLaren and Red Bull.
He added, "I’m sure those gaps will tighten even further when we get to qualifying tomorrow." Championship leader Kimi Antonelli suffered a hydraulic leak in the first practice session, and Mercedes were forced to change his power unit before the second session, costing him roughly an hour of track time. Despite the setback, Antonelli still managed to finish second in the second practice, only half a second behind his teammate.
He commented, "We tried to do the maximum with what we had. Losing laps in FP1 and missing half of FP2 is never ideal, especially on a street circuit. Overall, I feel it was a good recovery. I feel quite good in the car.
A few things to work on but looking forward to tomorrow." Red Bull’s Max Verstappen remained the closest challenger to Mercedes in the practice sessions, though he still trailed the leading times by about eight‑tenths of a second. Verstappen’s teammate, Isack Hadjar, returned to the car for the first time since July after a wrist injury kept him out for three races.
Hadjar, who is confirmed as Verstappen’s teammate for the 2027 season, also faced an engine issue in the first practice but remained optimistic, saying, "It feels good. I had a good feeling.
Not many laps unfortunately but this will come. I’m not really worried too much about the pace.
The feeling with this new package, we know the characteristics are the same with the car, but it 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 practice session, yet Hamilton expressed frustration with Ferrari’s tyre performance and straight‑line speed. "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 said. He added that the tyres were particularly difficult to get into their optimal operating window, noting, "You do an out lap and a prep lap and they are still not in the window and still don’t provide you with the grip.
When you do an extra lap, all of a sudden they switch up and you have tonnes more grip, so that’s a really fine line and really difficult to get working. Some teams do it better than others." Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur echoed the sentiment, saying the sessions were hard to interpret and that every performance parameter – fuel load, engine mapping and tyre behaviour – had a larger impact than on a conventional circuit. "The drivers were not very pleased with the balance, so we have a lot to do tonight to find a good solution for tomorrow," he said. The weekend’s schedule also features a full slate of Formula 2 action, with a sprint race on Friday morning, a feature race later that day, and the final F2 feature race on Saturday morning, all broadcast live on Sky Sports Main Event.
The Azerbaijan Grand Prix will conclude on Sunday with the traditional post‑race analysis and reaction segments. In summary, McLaren’s ambitious upgrade package has not yet delivered the expected gains, leaving Norris and the team to work hard over the remaining practice time to close a sizeable gap to Mercedes and Red Bull. Meanwhile, Mercedes and Ferrari are focused on fine‑tuning their setups for qualifying, and Red Bull hopes its new parts will finally translate into the pace needed to challenge for victory on the demanding Baku street circuit.