Oscar Piastri chose to highlight McLaren's progress rather than the gap to Mercedes after Friday practice at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. The Australian ended FP1 in sixth and FP2 in eighth, 1.510 seconds adrift of George Russell's benchmark as Mercedes locked out the top two positions in both sessions.
However, Piastri's day was compromised from the start. He reported heavy vibration through the front brakes during FP1, and McLaren later discovered damage around the floorboards on both MCL40s. Rather than lose further track time, the team elected to continue running before making temporary repairs that allowed Piastri and Lando Norris to complete their FP2 programs.
“An interesting but productive day,” Piastri said. “There's lots to learn here with the new cars, and on a personal level it felt pretty positive overall. FP1 was a little disrupted with the reliability issue which meant we lost a bit of running, which is never ideal. But we've made some good steps in FP2, and we have some decent long run pace.”
McLaren brought a revised aerodynamic package for the MCL40 to Baku, including new bodywork and floor components, plus a higher-downforce H-Wing at the rear. Piastri ran the updated H-Wing in FP1 while Norris used the previous specification for comparison, before both cars switched to the newer version for FP2. Initial feedback suggested the package was behaving as expected, though Chief Technical Officer and Chief Designer Rob Marshall admitted there was still considerable performance to find.
“We've introduced a significant upgrade this weekend and the initial data suggests the car is behaving as our simulations predicted, which is a positive starting point,” Marshall said. “However, it's clear we haven't yet unlocked its full potential. The first session was slightly disrupted, and we are still in the process of dialling in both the chassis and the power unit to suit the unique demands of this circuit. We have a lot of data to analyse, but we are confident in our process.”
Piastri was able to complete a full FP2 program after the earlier repairs, finishing just 0.026s behind Norris, though both McLarens ended the session more than 1.4 seconds away from Russell. The 25-year-old said the priority overnight would be finding enough performance to close that deficit before qualifying.
“The plan for tomorrow is to keep making steady improvements, unlock some more performance so that we can make up some of the gap to the Mercedes, and see what we can do in qualifying,” he explained.
Norris was less upbeat about McLaren's position after finishing sixth in FP2. The Briton said the MCL40 itself did not feel particularly difficult to drive, but admitted the size of the gap at the front was difficult to ignore. “We're miles off,” Norris told Sky Sports F1. “We're up there relative in a position we expect to be in, but like 1.5 seconds off the pace.” Asked whether McLaren could make progress overnight, Norris added: “I hope so. I have no idea. We'll see what work we can do tonight.”
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