Lando Norris believes McLaren may not be able to turnaround their hopes at the Azerbaijan GP after a difficult start to the weekend at the Baku City Circuit on Thursday, September 24.
The defending world champion should have claimed his third win of the 2026 F1 season at the Spanish GP, but an ill-timed virtual safety car cost him the chance to back up his convincing drives at the Hungarian GP and Dutch GP.
Still, the motorsport star is on a run of four consecutive finishes in fourth or better and aims to continue that momentum besides the Caspian Sea but faced a crushing reminder of the frailty of form in Formula 1.
Whilst one could be forgiven for thinking the MCL40, equipped with a Mercedes-provided power unit, would fare well around Baku thanks to the long straights, his team opened the day firmly on the back foot.
Norris finished the day in 14th and 1.594 seconds behind George Russell’s Mercedes fastest time whilst his teammate Oscar Piastri couldn’t get meaningfully closer with the Australian’s best time still a second down.
The team then took the data gathered from Free Practice 1 and made some tweaks for FP2 but once again found themselves languishing well behind the Silver Arrows as Thursday concluded.
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Although Norris finished FP2 in sixth to improve by eight places, he still found himself 1.484 seconds behind Russell – indicating McLaren have not made any inroads on the benchmark.
The outcome left the 26-year-old cutting a very frustrated figure as he bemoaned that whilst he has no issues with the comfort of driving his car, the team is simply too slow.
“We’re miles off. I mean, we’re up there, let’s say, relative…,” Norris told media, including Total-Motorsport.com. “We’re in the position we expected to be in, but at 1.5 seconds off the pace. It’s pretty pants.
“I have no idea. We’ll see what work we can do. The car didn’t feel that bad, so it’s just a little knife in the heart when you see how far off you are.
“I don’t really care how confident I am in the car, I just care about the pace, and we’re not very fast.
“I don’t care. I drive whatever car I get given, I just want it to be quick, and it’s not very quick at the minute. We’ll see what we can change for tomorrow.”
Why McLaren may not turnaround difficult Azerbaijan GP weekend
Although finishing sixth on Saturday would offer a respectable haul of points for McLaren, it’s the pace deficit that matters the most with the team seemingly out of the fight for the victory.
But McLaren’s engineers and mechanics still have time ahead of FP3 and Qualifying on Friday to try to find solutions to close in on the Silver Arrows and to nip ahead of Ferrari and Red Bull.
However, Norris does not believe McLaren will turnaround their difficult weekend at the Azerbaijan GP as he feels the track characteristics simply to not play to the strengths of the car, singling out the lack of high-speed corners as the main weakness.
“Certainly the pace has been there,” Norris said on Wednesday. “The team have been doing a very good job. We’re there or thereabouts but I think Baku will be another challenge for us.
“Not one high speed corner on this track, not even a medium speed corner. I think it will be more of a challenge to Monaco spec, which is where we struggled a lot last time.
“Out of the last few circuits, this is the one I’ve not been looking forward to the most. Last year was not a good race weekend for us.
“Our goal is to try and win but that’s all the focus for now.”
Norris qualified eighth for the Monaco GP, one year on from winning the famous race, as he found himself 0.714s behind Kimi Antonelli. He went on to retire from the race on Lap 43, whilst Piastri started seventh and finished fourth in a race of attrition.
