Lando Norris was blunt after Thursday’s practice sessions at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, describing McLaren’s speed as "pretty pants" and making it clear that a pole‑position challenge is far from realistic. 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 do not suit the current McLaren package.
McLaren arrived in Baku with a substantial upgrade bundle – new side‑pods, a redesigned engine cover, an updated diffuser and fresh floor edges – all intended to lift the car’s performance. However, the changes have not translated into immediate lap‑time gains. "We are miles off. 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," Norris explained, noting that he sits 106 points behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli with nine races still to run. When pressed about whether the team could close the gap to Mercedes, Norris admitted uncertainty.
"I hope so. I have no idea. We will see what work we can do tonight.
The car doesn’t feel that bad, so it’s a little 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 given. I just want it to be quick and it’s not very quick at the moment," he said.
During the second practice, Norris aborted a lap that, according to his own assessment, would have brought him within a second of Russell’s best time. Russell, who topped both practice sessions, later remarked that while overtaking is possible in Baku, track position remains crucial on the narrow street layout. McLaren’s technical chief, Rob Marshall, cautioned that the team is still in the early stages of understanding the eight new components on the car. "We had 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. He added that the aerodynamic maps appear promising, but extracting performance will require further fine‑tuning. Qualifying is scheduled for Friday at 13:00, with the Grand Prix itself set for Saturday at noon, both broadcast live on Sky Sports F1. Despite the possibility of overtaking on Baku’s long straight, the circuit’s street‑circuit nature makes a solid qualifying result essential.
Mercedes, meanwhile, faced its own challenges. Kimi Antonelli suffered a hydraulic leak in the first practice session and was forced to change his power unit before the second session, losing an hour of track time. Nevertheless, the Italian driver managed to finish second in the second practice, just half a second behind his teammate George Russell, who leads the championship by 81 points.
Antonelli reflected on the setback, saying, "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.
Overall, I feel like 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 was the nearest rival to Mercedes in the practice sessions, yet still lingered more than eight‑tenths of a second off the leading pace despite the team’s own upgrade package for Baku. Isack Hadjar, returning after a wrist injury that kept him out for three race weekends, also struggled for track time due to an engine issue in the first practice.
Still, he expressed optimism: "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, but Hamilton 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.
FP1 I felt very strong and I thought we were doing well but in FP2 the others took another step," Hamilton said, adding that the tyre window in Baku is notoriously narrow. "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.
But we try our best and some teams do it better than others. We have to look into that. Then our straight‑line speed is not as good as Mercedes.
Whether we can close that deficit tomorrow, we will try to work on tonight. Otherwise, a fun day." Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur echoed the sentiment, noting that the sessions were hard to interpret and that every performance parameter – fuel load, engine settings, tyre temperatures – had a larger impact than on a conventional circuit. "They 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 is packed: Friday will feature an F2 sprint, the third practice for the Azerbaijan GP, and the F2 feature race before the main qualifying session.
Saturday includes the F2 feature race, the Grand Prix build‑up, the race itself at noon, and post‑race analysis. All events will be streamed live on Sky Sports Main Event, with the option to watch via the Sky Sports app or NOW without a long‑term contract. In summary, McLaren’s ambitious upgrade package has yet to deliver the expected performance boost in Baku, leaving Norris and the team with a significant deficit to overcome if they hope to fight for pole. Meanwhile, Mercedes and Ferrari are grappling with their own technical and tyre‑related challenges, while Red Bull and its new‑face teammate Isack Hadjar remain in the mix as potential spoilers.
The upcoming qualifying session will be the first real test of whether any of the teams can translate their practice‑day learnings into a competitive grid position for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.