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 anticipate the team fighting for pole position. In the second free‑practice session, Norris was a full 1.5 seconds slower than the session leader, George Russell, and the tight, 90‑degree corners of the Baku street circuit appeared to expose the weaknesses of the current McLaren package. The team arrived in Baku with a substantial upgrade bundle – new side‑pods, a revised engine cover, an updated diffuser and a fresh floor edge – yet the fresh components have not translated into an immediate performance jump. "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 said, noting that he sits 106 points behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli with nine races still to run. When asked whether McLaren could close the gap to Mercedes in the remaining practice time, Norris replied, "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." 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 Thursday sessions, later commented on the importance of track position on Baku’s street layout, even though overtaking is possible. "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," the Mercedes driver said, adding that he expects the gaps to tighten further in qualifying. McLaren’s chief technical officer, Rob Marshall, reminded the media that the team is still in the early stages of understanding how the eight new parts interact. "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 explained.
"I think the car is doing what we want it to do. The aero maps seem pretty happy. It's just a matter of dialling the performance in." The schedule for the weekend shows qualifying set for Friday at 13:00, with the Grand Prix itself on Saturday at noon, both broadcast live on Sky Sports F1. The race will be held on a Sunday that coincides with Azerbaijan’s Remembrance Day, adding a solemn note to the festivities.
Mercedes’ championship leader, Kimi Antonelli, suffered a hydraulic leak in the first practice session and then had to replace his power unit before the second session, losing roughly an hour of track time. Despite the setbacks, Antonelli still managed to finish second in the second practice, only half a second behind his teammate George 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 said.
"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 challenger to Mercedes in the practice sessions, yet he remained more than eight tenths of a second slower than the leading times, even after Red Bull introduced its own upgrades for Baku. Meanwhile, Isack Hadjar returned to the Red Bull garage for the first time since July after missing three races with a wrist injury sustained during the summer break.
Although an engine issue in the first practice limited his running, Hadjar 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 session, but Hamilton, a seven‑time world champion, complained 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 explained, noting that the team made no changes to the car between the two sessions. He added, "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, saying the sessions were hard to interpret because every performance parameter – fuel load, engine mapping, tyre temperature – seemed to have 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 timetable also includes a full slate of Formula 2 action, with a sprint race on Friday morning, the feature race later that day, and the second feature race on Saturday morning, all streamed live on Sky Sports Main Event.
The Azerbaijan Grand Prix will therefore form the centerpiece of a triple‑header weekend that showcases both the pinnacle of single‑seater racing and the emerging talent from the junior categories. In summary, McLaren’s extensive upgrade package has not yet delivered the expected speed boost, leaving Norris and the team grappling with a sizeable deficit to the front‑running Mercedes. While the engineers remain confident that the car is behaving as intended, they acknowledge that fine‑tuning the new components will take time. As qualifying looms, the pressure will be on all teams to extract maximum performance from their machines on a circuit where a single lap can make the difference between a podium start and a midfield scramble.
The race itself promises to be a strategic battle, with Baku’s narrow streets rewarding clean air and precise tyre management. Fans can look forward to a dramatic showdown on Saturday, streamed live on Sky Sports F1, as the drivers push their cars to the limit in one of the most demanding venues on the Formula 1 calendar.