Norris upbeat about McLaren pace despite practice issues

Lando Norris says he’d rather crash in practice than not push the limit of his car after suffering session-ending suspension damage during FP2 at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Norris, 31 points off the championship lead, was on a push lap on soft tires when he understeered into Turn 4. His steering wheel locked to the right, his car suddenly gripped up and slapped the outside barrier with its rear-left wheel. The damage was immediate, and the Briton crawled back to pit lane to retire the car from the session.

But despite having completed just seven laps for the session – following a heavily disrupted first practice hour – Norris said the closeness of the competition this season provided the incentive to search for the limit.

“I was feeling good until then,” he said. “I’d rather have this and push and find the limits than not push at all.

“I have to push. It’s tough. I’m up against some good guys. I’ve got to push and find the limit.”

Not only did the incident leave Norris without a representative time, it also cost him a chance to complete a long-run simulation on Pirelli’s softest C6 tire compound, which is new to this circuit this season and has been used at only three other tracks this year.

“A costly one, especially here,” he said. “I would’ve liked to have got some high-fuel laps in, especially on these tires – the softer compound compared to last year.

“The track is very different to last year. It’s quite a bit quicker, and it’s a softer compound, which we don’t use that often. But it is what it is. I’ll have to make up for it.”

Norris noted that it wasn’t just him who struggled for a clean lap in Baku, with teammate Oscar Piastri also losing his shots at a representative fast time to a tap of the barriers at Turn 15 and then a lock-up at Turn 2.

“Certainly I’m behind on the learnings now, but it’s a scrappy session from both my side and Oscar’s side,” Norris said. “He seemed to be struggling a little bit with the car as well, so we’ll see what we can make up for tomorrow.”

The title leader said he also found it difficult to extract the most from his car despite feeling that it had the performance to lead the field.

“I think the pace is there, it’s just not the easiest to get the most out of it at the moment,” said Piastri. “That’s probably the main thing. We tried a few things in FP2; I’m sure we’ll look back and see what we can change for tomorrow.”

Despite the optimism from both sides of the garage that McLaren will be able to turn things around on Saturday, Norris said he expected the battle for pole and victory would be tight.

“Certainly [Ferrari seem to be in it],” he said. “They were easily the quickest here last year even though Oscar won. I think Ferrari will be quick.

“Red Bull are going to be quick – they’re never good on Friday but then they go to sleep and they wake up and they’re just quick again. I expect a challenge from at least three cars tomorrow.”