Lando Norris admitted on Thursday that McLaren’s speed during the practice sessions for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was "pretty pants," and he does not expect the team 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, a gap that highlighted how the tight, 90-degree corners of the Baku street circuit seem to be ill‑suited to the current McLaren chassis. Despite arriving in Baku with a substantial upgrade package – brand‑new sidepods, an altered engine cover, a revised diffuser and a fresh floor edge – the team has not yet translated those parts into tangible on‑track performance.
"We are miles off," Norris said, acknowledging that while the team is in the right relative position on the grid, the raw lap times are far from competitive. "We are up there relative and in the position we expect to be in but we are 1.5 seconds off the pace.
Pretty pants." The British driver, who trails championship leader Kimi Antonelli by 106 points with nine races remaining, was asked whether McLaren could narrow the gap to Mercedes. "I hope so.
I have no idea. We will see what work we can do tonight," Norris replied. He added that the car does not feel terrible, which makes the large time deficit feel like a "little knife in the heart" when the numbers are examined.
"I just care about the pace and we are not very fast. I drive whatever car I get given. I just want it to be quick and it's not very quick at the moment." During the second practice, Norris aborted a lap that, according to his own assessment, would have placed him within a second of Russell’s best time. Russell, who topped both Thursday sessions, later noted that overtaking is possible on the Baku street circuit but that track position remains crucial because of the narrow, twisty layout.
"There's still plenty of work to do," the Mercedes driver said, emphasizing that the team’s single‑lap speed looks competitive with McLaren and Red Bull, and that the gaps should tighten in qualifying. McLaren’s technical chief Rob Marshall described the situation as "early days" for the eight new components on the car. He explained that the team is still learning how to extract the full potential from the upgrades.
"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 said. He added that the aerodynamic maps appear promising, but the performance still needs to be fine‑tuned. The qualifying session is scheduled for Friday at 1 p.m., with the race itself set for Saturday at noon, both broadcast live on Sky Sports F1.
The weekend also includes a full programme of Formula 2 races and supporting events. Mercedes faced its own challenges. Antonelli suffered a hydraulic leak in the first practice session and was forced to change his power unit before the second session, losing roughly an hour of track time. Nevertheless, the Italian driver 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. We lost quite a few laps in FP1 and missing half of FP2 is never ideal, especially on a street circuit," Antonelli explained. He felt the recovery was satisfactory and expressed optimism for the upcoming qualifying. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen remained the closest challenger to Mercedes in the practice runs, though he still trailed by about eight‑tenths of a second at the end of the day, despite the team’s own upgrade package for Baku.
Meanwhile, Isack Hadjar returned to the Red Bull cockpit after missing the previous three race weekends due to a wrist injury sustained during the summer break. Hadjar, confirmed as Verstappen’s teammate for the 2027 season, also experienced an engine issue that limited his running in the first practice session. Nevertheless, he described his brief time on track as "pretty happy" and noted that the new package felt better than it had in Budapest. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton both featured in the top five of each practice session, but Hamilton, a seven‑time world champion, warned that the Scuderia is still lacking on tyre performance and straight‑line speed.
"The tyres are really, really difficult to get to work," Hamilton said, explaining that even after multiple out laps and preparation laps, the rubber often fails to reach its optimal temperature window. He observed that a single extra lap can suddenly produce a surge of grip, making tyre management a fine line. He also pointed out that Ferrari’s straight‑line speed lags behind Mercedes, and the team will need to work hard overnight to close that deficit. Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur echoed the sentiment, describing the sessions as "difficult to read" because every performance parameter – fuel load, engine mapping, and tyre behavior – had a larger impact than on a conventional circuit.
He admitted that the drivers were not entirely satisfied with the car’s balance and that the team has a lot of work to do before qualifying. In summary, McLaren’s ambitious upgrade program has not yet delivered the expected performance gains in Baku, leaving Norris and his engineers to grapple with a substantial time gap to the front‑runners. While the team remains hopeful that further work on the car’s setup can shave off crucial tenths of a second, the reality on Thursday’s practice was stark: the new parts need more fine‑tuning before they can translate into a realistic shot at pole position.
The upcoming qualifying session will be the first true test of whether McLaren can bridge the 1.5‑second deficit and re‑ignite their challenge in the championship race.