McLaren ended the opening day of Azerbaijan Grand Prix running facing a significant deficit to Mercedes, with Lando Norris admitting that being around 1.5 seconds away from George Russell’s FP2 benchmark felt like a “knife in the heart”. Norris finished sixth, while team-mate Oscar Piastri was eighth, as Mercedes topped both practice sessions in dominant fashion.
The picture behind the W17s appeared considerably tighter, however, and McLaren believes there may still be much more performance to extract from its extensively updated MCL40. The Woking team has brought a major Baku aerodynamic package, and Thursday was the first opportunity to understand how the revised car behaves on track.
Lando Norris says McLaren is ‘miles away’ from Mercedes
Mercedes emerged clearly ahead during an unusual Thursday of track action in Baku, immediately establishing itself as the leading contender for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Determining the pecking order behind the Silver Arrows was far more difficult.
During the qualifying simulation in FP2, Norris finished almost 1.5 seconds behind Russell. It remains possible that McLaren did not reveal all of its performance, but the reigning world champion made no attempt to hide his concern.
“We’re miles away,” Norris said after FP2. “We’re in the position we expected to be in, but 1.5 seconds off.”
Asked whether such a deficit could realistically be recovered, the British driver replied: “Do you think closing 1.5 seconds is doable? I have no idea how much closer we can get. The car doesn’t feel that bad, but it’s a knife in the heart to find out you’re that far away.”
Norris remained pessimistic when assessing the fundamental issue facing McLaren.
“I don’t care how much confidence I have in the car, I only care about the pace. I’ll drive whatever car I’m given. I just want it to be fast, and at the moment it doesn’t seem to be particularly quick. We’ll see what we can change for tomorrow.”
Oscar Piastri encouraged by McLaren’s long-run pace
Piastri struck a more optimistic tone despite finishing eighth, only a few hundredths of a second behind his team-mate.
“It was an interesting but productive day. There’s a lot to learn here with the new cars,” Piastri said. “Personally, overall it was quite positive.”
His opening session was compromised by a technical problem, but Piastri felt McLaren made meaningful progress later in the day.
“FP1 was disrupted a little by a reliability issue that cost us some time, which is never ideal, but in FP2 we made good progress and showed good pace on the long runs.”
Looking ahead to qualifying day, Piastri added: “The plan for tomorrow is to keep improving and unlock more performance, so that we can reduce the gap to Mercedes and then see what we’re able to do in qualifying.”
McLaren brings B-spec-style MCL40 package to Baku
McLaren has arrived in Azerbaijan with such an extensive collection of new parts that the latest specification can almost be considered a B-version of the MCL40.
The car developed under Andrea Stella and Zak Brown has undergone a significant change in aerodynamic philosophy, with revisions to the floor, diffuser, engine cover and suspension that alter the distribution of airflow around the car.
The package also includes the radically revised MCL40 sidepod concept, part of a broader attempt to increase performance and close the gap to Mercedes during the final phase of the season.
Rob Marshall: McLaren has not unlocked full potential yet
McLaren Chief Technical Officer and Chief Designer Rob Marshall said the early data was encouraging, even though the team has not yet extracted everything from the package.
“The initial data suggests that the car is behaving as our simulations predicted, which is a positive starting point,” Marshall said. “However, it’s clear that we haven’t unlocked its full potential yet.”
“The first session was slightly disrupted and we’re still fine-tuning both the chassis and the PU to suit the unique demands of this circuit.”
Marshall remains confident McLaren can make substantial progress before qualifying, particularly given the team’s record of improving its cars throughout race weekends.
“Historically, we’ve been able to progress from practice into qualifying and that remains our objective,” he explained. “It’s about building confidence for the drivers, optimising the configurations and extracting the performance potential that we believe the package has.”
“There haven’t been any particular shocks and we’re focused on the methodical work needed to get where we want to be for qualifying.”
Qualifying will reveal true Mercedes-McLaren gap
The opening day therefore produced two very different interpretations inside McLaren. Norris was deeply concerned by the raw deficit to Mercedes, while Piastri and Marshall saw enough encouraging signs to believe substantial performance may still be available.
McLaren’s latest developments are among the most extensive changes made to the MCL40 this season, and the team continues to push aggressively despite the championship entering its closing stages. Further developments and analysis can be followed in the McLaren F1 section.
Thursday made Mercedes the clear benchmark, but the final judgement on McLaren’s new package will have to wait until qualifying, when the teams can no longer afford to hide their true performance.
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