After three pole positions in the last four rounds, qualifying for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was underwhelming for the McLaren Formula 1 team, which has struggled all weekend.
The MCL40 was described as “miles off” by Lando Norris following Thursday practice, which he ended 1.5s off the pace – a figure that was mostly representative as he aborted a quicker lap but wouldn’t have gained nearly that much time.
McLaren got closer in FP3 – Oscar Piastri was eight tenths down – and the Australian maintained this rhythm on his way to third in qualifying. Norris, three further tenths adrift, ended up fifth due to a lock-up in Q3 and a technical issue causing a lack of top speed.
The team brought a major upgrade to Baku, with revised sidepods, engine cover, floor, diffuser, rear suspension and rear wing. So did those parts function as intended?
“Just thinking of qualifying now, the guys say everything’s working as expected, but when you see eight tenths to the top, it’s painful,” a frustrated Norris commented after qualifying, before clarifying: “But, at the same time, our time losses are in the straights.”
McLaren’s own feedback about the updates is positive, though team principal Andrea Stella pointed out they weren’t supposed to bring as much performance as the Hungaroring update which led to a substantial improvement in the team’s fortunes.
“The upgrades worked well,” Stella said. “They were relatively noticeable, because in this case they included the shape of the sidepods and also a floor. Even if they were possibly even more noticeable than what we took in Hungary, in terms of impact on performance it was a little bit less.
Andrea Stella, McLaren
Photo by: Ryan Pierse / Getty Images
“In general we are happy with the data that we have measured, and we are happy with the impact on performance.
“In a circuit like Azerbaijan, we knew that it would have been on the difficult side for McLaren. One reason goes back to the speed in the straights, which is not our strength, and the other reason is related to the fact that there are no medium- or high-speed corners.
“So we are constantly fighting in a range where the car doesn’t express its best qualities, and this has not been fundamentally changed by the upgrades, which just add a little bit of aerodynamic load in all conditions.”
McLaren went the extra mile to ensure it extracted the maximum from its update, with the rear-left corner of Norris’ car covered in flow-vis right until the end of FP3. This was unusually late to use that paint, which allows engineers to see the actual airflow on the car, rather than rely on the miniature chassis in the wind tunnel.
“The reason why you see the flow-vis even in [FP3] is because we kept experimenting in Free Practice 1 and 2 with various solutions, and then in Free Practice 3 we converged on a solution that we adopted on both cars, and we wanted to have a final check to see that things were going as expected,” Stella explained. “And I’m pleased to say that they did.”
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