{IMGR}The McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team made a reasonable start to the 2026 Azerbaijan Grand Prix event, completing a productive opening day of running at the Baku City Circuit.

Initial signs from the team's upgrade package were encouraging, although it remains early in the process of fully understanding and optimising the potential performance of the new components.

During Free Practice 1, the team encountered an issue with the floorboards that required an on-car solution during the session. An interim fix was implemented between sessions ahead of Free Practice 2, allowing the team to continue gathering useful data, with a more comprehensive solution planned ahead of Friday's running. The team will now work overnight to improve the overall balance and performance of the MCL40 ahead of final practice and Qualifying.

The team came to Baku with upgraded bodywork and floor to the MCL40. It also had a new, higher downforce H-Wing available to run on the rear. The latter was tested in Free Practice 1, with Oscar Piastri running the new specification and Lando Norris running a previous one for comparison. With the new package working as intended, both cars had it fitted for Free Practice 2.

The first session was not smooth. Oscar was suffering vibrations in his front brakes. Those were changed between the sessions, but the team elected to continue running in Free Practice 1, unwilling to lose time in the garage at a track where more laps breed driver confidence, and driver confidence is worth real lap time.

A bigger issue was to make itself known, with Lando's car suffering damage to the front of the floor on both sides. With no obvious cause, the team elected to keep an eye on Oscar's floor also, and eventually it showed a similar problem. A short-term fix was made to get the cars back out and running, with a more substantial solution applied between the sessions. The temporary fixes worked allowing both cars to be able to complete full programmes in Free Practice 2 - though a more comprehensive solution is planned for tomorrow.

The team ran the opposite way around to most of the field, using a Medium tyre in Free Practice 1 and a Hard in Free Practice 2. After starting the second session on the Hard tyre, both drivers switched to a Soft after a Red Flag delay. Following a Quali sim they stayed with the Used Soft for the high-fuel runs, gaining knowledge of a tyre that looks sufficiently robust to be in the mix for the race.

Both Lando and Oscar came away from the afternoon session thinking there's more to come, with scope for considerable improvement heading into Qualifying day tomorrow. That is the focus now as the team at the track and back at the factory starts to delve into the data accrued from the first day of running at the Baku City Circuit.

Lando Norris: "A tricky start today after losing some laps in FP1 which wasn't ideal, but the team in the garage did a solid job to get the cars ready for FP2 and that's a positive we'll carry forward. Overall, the car actually feels pretty good to drive, but on a slow-speed track with a long straight we're losing out and being off the pace is a tough start. We'll now dig into the data overnight and see what we can change for tomorrow's sessions, I hope we can close some of the gap. We'll keep our heads down and try to maximise what we have for the remainder of the weekend."

Oscar Piastri: "An interesting but productive day. 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. 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."

Rob Marshall - Chief Technical Officer & Chief Designer: "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. 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.

"Our focus now is on the work we do overnight. We have a history of making strong progress from Free Practice into Qualifying, and that remains our objective. It's about building driver confidence, optimising the setup, and extracting the performance that we believe is in the package. There were no major shocks, and we are focused on the methodical work required to get us where we want to be for Qualifying."