Lando Norris admitted on Thursday that McLaren's performance during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix practice sessions was far from competitive, describing the car's speed as "pretty pants" and saying he does not expect to fight for pole position. In the second 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 seemed to expose the weaknesses of the McLaren chassis. The team arrived in Baku with a substantial upgrade package that included brand‑new sidepods, a revised engine cover, an updated diffuser and a freshly designed floor edge. Despite the extensive work, the upgrades have not translated into an immediate gain in lap times.
"We are miles off," Norris explained. "We are up there relative to where we want to be, but we are 1.5 seconds off the pace.
Pretty pants." With nine races remaining, he sits 106 points behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli. When asked whether McLaren could close the gap to Mercedes, Norris was cautiously optimistic but honest about the challenge.
"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," he said.
"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 it's not very quick at the moment." During the second practice, Norris aborted a flying lap that, had it been completed, would likely have brought him within a second of Russell’s best time. Russell, who topped both practice sessions, praised the competitiveness of his own car over a single lap and suggested that the gaps between the front‑running teams would tighten in qualifying. McLaren's chief technical officer Rob Marshall described the situation as "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," he said.
"I think the car is doing what we want it to do. The aero maps seem pretty happy. It's just a matter of dialing the performance in." Qualifying is scheduled for Friday at 13:00 local time, with the race itself set for Saturday at noon. The Baku circuit, while offering overtaking opportunities, still places a premium on track position because it is a narrow street layout.
Russell noted that Mercedes still has work to do, saying, "It's been a positive first day here in Baku. The car felt competitive over a single lap, and our race pace looks closely matched with McLaren and Red Bull. 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 was forced to change his engine before the second session, losing roughly an hour of track time.
Despite the setbacks, Antonelli managed to finish second in the second practice, just half a second behind his teammate Russell. He commented, "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." Max Verstappen, Red Bull's lead driver, was the closest challenger to Mercedes in the practice sessions but remained over eight tenths of a second slower than Russell at the end of the day, even after Red Bull introduced its own upgrades for Baku.
Meanwhile, Isack Hadjar returned to the Red Bull seat for the first time since July after missing three races due to a wrist injury sustained during the summer break. Despite an engine issue that limited his running in the first practice, Hadjar said he was "pretty happy" with the car, noting that the new package retained the familiar characteristics he likes, and that it felt better than when he last drove in Budapest. Ferrari's Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton both featured in the top five of the two practice sessions. Hamilton, a seven‑time world champion, 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," he said. He added that the tyres were extremely difficult to get into the optimal window, requiring precise out‑laps and preparation laps. "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," Hamilton explained. He also noted that Ferrari's straight‑line speed lagged behind Mercedes and that the team would work on closing that deficit before qualifying.
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 temperatures – had a bigger 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," Vasseur said. The weekend schedule also includes Formula 2 support races, with a sprint race on Friday morning, a feature race later that day, and a second feature race on Saturday morning.
All events are being broadcast live on Sky Sports F1, with streaming options available via the NOW platform. In summary, McLaren's ambitious upgrade package has not yet delivered the expected performance gains in Baku, leaving Norris and the team facing a significant deficit to the front‑running Mercedes and Red Bull cars. The team will spend the evening analysing data and fine‑tuning the new components, hoping to extract more speed before qualifying.
Meanwhile, the championship battle continues to heat up as Antonelli, Russell, Verstappen and Hamilton each look to maximize points on a demanding street circuit that rewards both raw pace and strategic track‑position management.