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 out of reach for now. In the second free‑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 are not playing to the strengths of the current McLaren package.
The British driver pointed out that despite a substantial upgrade package – new side‑pods, an updated engine cover, a revised diffuser and fresh floor edges – the car has not instantly translated those parts into measurable performance gains. "We’re miles off the pace," Norris said, noting that while the team is in the position it expects to be, the time deficit remains stark.
"We’re up there relative to where we think we should be, but we’re 1.5 seconds off the leading time. Pretty pants." Norris, who sits 106 points behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli with nine races left in the season, was asked whether McLaren could narrow the gap to Mercedes. He replied, "I hope so.
I have no idea. We’ll see what 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." During the second practice, Norris aborted a lap that, according to telemetry, would likely have brought him within a second of Russell’s best time. Russell, who topped both Thursday sessions, later remarked that while overtaking is possible in Baku, track position remains crucial on this narrow street layout.
McLaren’s chief technical officer Rob Marshall offered a more measured perspective on the new components. He described the situation as "early days" for the eight fresh items on the car and emphasized that the team is still learning how to extract the full potential from the package.
"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 appear promising, but the challenge now is to translate that into on‑track speed. Qualifying is scheduled for Friday at 13:00 local time, with the race itself set for Saturday at noon, both broadcast live on Sky Sports F1. Although Baku’s street circuit allows for overtaking, the narrow nature of the track means that starting position can heavily influence the final result.
Mercedes, meanwhile, enjoyed a smoother weekend. Despite a hydraulics leak in the first practice session, Kimi Antonelli was forced to change his power unit before the second session, losing an hour of running. Nevertheless, the Italian driver still 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 limited running time, 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, who remains Mercedes’ closest rival on the grid, was still over eight‑tenths of a second slower than Russell at the end of the day, despite the Dutch team bringing its own set of upgrades to Baku. Isack Hadjar returned to the Red Bull car for the first time since July after a wrist injury sidelined him for three race weekends.
Although an engine issue curtailed his track time in the first practice, Hadjar expressed optimism, noting that the new package felt "nice" and that the car’s characteristics remained familiar. "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," Hadjar said. "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 session, yet Hamilton lamented that the team is still missing performance on the tyres and on the straight‑line sections of the circuit.
"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 explained, 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." Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur echoed the sentiment, noting that the sessions were hard to interpret because every performance parameter – fuel load, engine mapping, tyre temperature – 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," Vasseur said. The weekend schedule also includes a full slate of supporting events: F2 sprint and feature races on Friday and Saturday, as well as the main Grand Prix. All action will be streamed live on Sky Sports Main Event, with additional coverage available through the Sky Sports app and NOW streaming service, offering flexible viewing without a long‑term contract. In summary, while McLaren’s recent upgrades have shown promise in the wind tunnel, the real‑world data from Baku suggests that more work is required to close the substantial time gap to the front‑running teams.
Norris’s candid assessment underscores the challenges the team faces, but with a full engineering team on board and further development time, there remains a pathway to improve performance before the next qualifying session. The upcoming qualifying will be a decisive test for all teams as they attempt to fine‑tune their setups for the high‑speed, high‑risk demands of the Baku street circuit.