Lando Norris admitted that McLaren’s speed during Thursday’s practice sessions at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was "pretty pants" and he does not expect the team to fight for pole position. In the second free‑practice session Norris was roughly 1.5 seconds slower than the session leader, George Russell, and the tight, 90‑degree corners of the Baku street circuit appeared to expose a fundamental mismatch between the car’s characteristics and the track’s demands.
McLaren arrived in Baku with a substantial upgrade package that includes brand‑new side‑pods, a revised engine cover, an updated diffuser and a re‑shaped floor edge. Despite the extensive work, the fresh components have not translated into an immediate performance boost.
"We are miles off," Norris said. "We’re in the right place on the grid and we’re doing what we expect, but we’re still about a second and a half off the pace.
Pretty pants." The British driver, who sits 106 points behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli with nine races remaining, was candid about the gap. When asked whether McLaren could close the practice deficit to Mercedes, Norris 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’re not very fast. I drive whatever car I get, but I want it to be quick and right now it isn’t." During the second practice session Norris aborted a lap that, had it been completed, would likely have placed him within a second of Russell’s best time.
Russell topped both practice sessions on Thursday, reinforcing Mercedes’ strong showing on the Baku street circuit. McLaren’s chief technical officer, Rob Marshall, cautioned that it is still "early days" for the eight new components on the car. "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," Marshall explained. He added that the aerodynamic maps look promising, but the team still needs to extract performance from the package.
Qualifying is scheduled for Friday at 1 p.m., with the race itself on Saturday at noon, both broadcast live on Sky Sports F1. Although overtaking is possible in Baku, track position remains crucial on the narrow, high‑speed street circuit.
Mercedes’ George Russell acknowledged that his team still has work to do, despite feeling competitive over a single lap and seeing race‑pace that appears close to McLaren and Red Bull. "I’m sure those gaps will tighten even further when we get to qualifying tomorrow," he said.
Championship leader Kimi Antonelli suffered a hydraulics leak in the first practice session, and Mercedes were forced to replace his power unit before the second session, costing him roughly an hour of track time. Nevertheless, Antonelli still managed to finish second in the second practice, only half a second behind 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 said. He described his recovery as good and expressed optimism for the upcoming qualifying.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull’s lead driver, was the closest challenger to Mercedes in the practice sessions but remained more than eight‑tenths of a second off the Mercedes pace by the end of the day, despite Red Bull also bringing upgrades to Baku. Isack Hadjar returned to the Red Bull car for the first time since July after missing three race weekends due to a wrist injury sustained during the summer break. Confirmed as Verstappen’s teammate for the 2027 season, Hadjar also lost valuable time because of an engine issue in the first practice, yet he remained "pretty happy" with the limited running. "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," he said.
He noted that the new package retains the same characteristics as before, but the car feels nicer than it did in Budapest. Both Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton featured in the top five of the two practice sessions.
Hamilton, a seven‑time world champion, complained that Ferrari are struggling to extract performance from the tyres and lack straight‑line speed compared with Mercedes. "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. He highlighted the difficulty of getting the tyres into the optimal operating window on Baku’s street surface, where a single extra lap can dramatically change grip levels.
"These tyres are really, really difficult to get to work. 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," he added. Hamilton also noted that Ferrari’s straight‑line speed lags behind Mercedes and that the team will work overnight to improve it. Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur echoed the sentiment, saying the sessions were hard to read and that every performance parameter – fuel load, engine mapping, tyre behaviour – had a larger impact than on a typical 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," Vasseur said.
The weekend schedule continues with an F2 sprint on Friday morning, followed by the third practice session for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the F2 feature race, and the qualifying build‑up. Saturday will see the F2 feature race, the Grand Prix build‑up, the main race at noon, and post‑race analysis.
All sessions are available live on Sky Sports Main Event and can be streamed via the Sky Sports app or NOW without a long‑term contract. In summary, McLaren’s extensive upgrade package has yet to deliver the expected performance gains, leaving Norris and the team facing a significant gap to the front‑running Mercedes and Red Bull cars. The team will spend the evening fine‑tuning the new components, hoping to narrow the deficit before qualifying.
Meanwhile, Mercedes and Ferrari are also grappling with tyre and balance issues, making the Baku street circuit a true test of car development, driver skill, and strategic acumen as the 2026 Formula 1 season pushes toward its climax.