Lando Norris had a chance to capitalise on Oscar Piastri’s torrid weekend at the 2025 F1 Azerbaijan GP, but the Briton didn’t have it all his way either. He finished P7 as the McLaren seemed to struggle for pace throughout the whole race – but, more worryingly, a slow restart meant he spent several laps stuck behind Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari in the opening stages of the grand prix.
“Cold brakes” meant he focused on getting temperature rather than gaining on the cars ahead
Norris already had a bad start and got overtaken by VCARB’s Isack Hadjar on the opening lap, dropping him down to eighth.
Despite his team-mate and title rival putting it into the wall for the second time this weekend, Norris missed another opportunity to move forward and gain points when he had an alarmingly slow restart to the safety car period following the Australian’s crash.
From the outside, it seemed a case of a slow reaction time to the leaders going full speed, but as he explained to print media afterwards, it was just an attempt to get some temperature in his brakes, and avoid a possible lock-up in the first corner:
“I was just struggling with my brake temps and trying to hit the brakes a little bit,” he explained. “I easily could have gone into turn one and just locked or something [without doing it].
“So just my brakes were cold and I was trying to focus on that rather than the restart.”
Why he had “no chance” against “unbelievably” quick Red Bull
The Briton believes his race was dictated by the poor qualifying on Saturday, in which he decided to go out first for the final runs in Q3, and encountered a very greasy circuit that wasn’t offering as much grip as he expected.
However, he argued that McLaren wasn’t the outright fastest car this weekend, with Red Bull taking that spot with their “unbelievably” quick pace.
Norris went as far as saying he had “no chance” to keep up with Yuki Tsunoda in the latter stages of the grand prix:
“Today was just a result [from the] performance yesterday,” said Norris. “I think we were also not that quick, honestly.
“I don’t think we were bad, but I could barely keep up with [Yuki] Tsunoda, and [there were] other parts of the track where the Red Bull was just unbelievably fast, I had no chance to keep up with him in some areas of the track.
“We struggled a little bit this weekend, this race. The car was difficult to drive, on a bit of a knife edge at times, easy to either be just too slow, or sometimes kind of feel like you’re there and then lock up and then something goes wrong.
“So the car didn’t fill us with a lot of confidence this weekend, and I think that showed from probably both of our performances.”
Tricky qualifying skewed McLaren’s true pace – but it still wasn’t Red Bull-beating level
The runner-up in the world championship is adamant that with a better grid position, he could’ve finished second behind eventual winner Max Verstappen:
“I think on ultimate pace, we were still not bad this weekend. We were still quick in FP1, FP2, FP3 and so forth.
“I think the tricky conditions, the water yesterday, the little bit of rain, going out first on track, all added up to making it the worst weekend [of the season].
“And our position today, I think if I started second, I think I would have finished second.”
Norris highlighted some areas that McLaren F1 massively lost out to Red Bull in the Azerbaijan GP, and why the performance on lower downforce circuits is still “not good enough” despite the incredibly succesful season they had up until now:
“I don’t think we had the pace of Red Bull, honestly. That was very, very clear. I think just the lower downforce tracks, we still seem to struggle.
“We still don’t have the confidence we need. It can be quick, we’re just not able to repeat it as often as we need to, or as often as the Red Bull, for example.
“We’ve had an amazing season, don’t get me wrong, but we clearly have things that are not good enough, and we have to keep working on them.”
After finishing seventh, Norris reduced the gap to F1 title rival Oscar Piastri to just 25 points, with seven rounds and three sprints still remaining.
