Norris rues 'knife in the heart' feeling as McLaren finish 'miles off' Baku pace
Lando Norris has described his and McLaren's deficit to the front of the field during Thursday practice at the Baku City Circuit as "a little knife in the heart", admitting the team are "miles off" the pace as things stand at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Disrupted start for upgraded McLaren
McLaren endured a troubled opening to the Azerbaijan weekend after floorboard issues on their upgraded MCL40 disrupted FP1, with Norris and team mate Oscar Piastri losing valuable track time as mechanics worked on a fix.
The pair returned for second practice with a makeshift solution in the form of cable ties, and while they were at least able to put more laps on the board, both drivers ultimately wound up around 1.5 seconds behind pace-setter George Russell.
'It's pretty pants'
Reflecting on Thursday's running – which included backing out of a stronger lap late in FP2 – Norris pulled no punches about where the team stand.
"We're miles off. I mean, we're up there, let's say, relative… We're in the position we expected to be in, but at 1.5 seconds off the pace. It's pretty pants," the Briton sighed.
Asked how much of that gap could realistically be closed overnight, Norris admitted he had no clear answer: "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."
On his own feeling behind the wheel, the McLaren driver was blunt: "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."
Marshall: 'We're racing prototypes'
Also facing the media after the sessions was McLaren's Chief Technical Officer and Chief Designer, Rob Marshall, who explained what went wrong with the cars in FP1 – and how the team's fresh updates otherwise performed.
"We put a lot of new bits on the car today," he said, with changes made to the sidepods, engine cover, floor, diffuser and rear suspension. "A lot of learning, a few cliches... I could roll a few more out... but obviously you put your package on and you need to learn how to dial it in. I don't think we're there yet."
"I think the car seems to be doing what we want it to do. The aero map kind of seems pretty happy, it's just a matter of dialling in the performance now. It's early days. A bit of a disrupted first session, but we'll see how we get on tomorrow."
As for the disrupted first session, Marshall stressed the problem was contained: "You look up and down the grid, things go wrong… You've got to remember that we're racing prototypes. We do our best to simulate what the conditions are, but ultimately you come to a track and it's not quite as you expect."
"In truth, it was a minor issue. We spotted a crack in a part and those tie wraps were added to mitigate that, to stop it getting any worse while we work out what to do properly. We could have left it. It might have been alright if we had left it. We didn't want to as we're short of bits."
With a sizeable gap to make up and limited time to find it, McLaren face a crucial overnight of analysis before Saturday's final practice and qualifying on the streets of Baku.