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For Lando Norris to only gain three points on Max Verstappen in the Formula One championship fight may have been met with disappointment going into the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend.
All the momentum has been with Norris and McLaren, making what once seemed like a long shot for the title look more realistic as Verstappen’s points lead ebbed away.
But crossing the line in fourth place on Sunday ahead of the Red Bull driver was a considerable achievement for Norris, given he started nine places behind Verstappen after a yellow flag led to a shock qualifying exit on Saturday.
“I wasn’t expecting it to be so good,” Norris admitted on Sky Sports after the race. Yes, there was a big slice of fortune on the penultimate lap, gaining two positions after Sergio Pérez and Carlos Sainz crashed. But he’d already done the necessary work to beat Verstappen, who was one position back in fifth.
It looked like a lost cause at one stage. At the end of a week dominated by discussion over McLaren’s use of team orders and a greater effort to prioritize Norris for his championship bid, the Briton became the wingman. A brief hold-up of Pérez on his out lap ensured Oscar Piastri stayed ahead of the Red Bull — a critical moment in the Australian’s charge to victory.
Verstappen filled Norris’ rearview mirrors not long after, and with a pit stop still to complete, it looked like Norris would drop back and lose ground on the Dutchman in the championship.
Instead, the day became a net gain for Norris as Verstappen was left to endure a tough race around the streets of Baku. Tough, but not disastrous. The F1 drivers’ championship remains very much within his grasp.
How Norris pulled off his fightback
Norris was skeptical of his recovery chances after qualifying, noting the difficulty of overtaking around Baku and the tendency for DRS trains to form. Starting on the hard compound tire allowed him to run deep into the race before pitting, potentially taking advantage of a safety car or any incidents ahead.
The race was incident-free until the penultimate lap, leaving Norris to complete the fightback on his own. He gained three places on the opening lap before picking off Yuki Tsunoda and Oliver Bearman to move into the top 10. Verstappen was about 12 seconds up the road in fifth, a sizable early gap for Norris to make up.
The decision to go so long on the hard compound tire was the game-changer for Norris. He was joined on the strategy by Alex Albon, who was a couple of places ahead and benefitting from Williams’ strong straight line speed. While Piastri, Charles Leclerc and Pérez were all able to clear the Albon-Norris roadblock, Sainz and Verstappen were not far enough ahead when they pitted to do the same.
Both caught up with Albon and Norris quickly thanks to their fresh hard tires, which suited Verstappen better in the early part of the stint than his mediums. Sainz managed to pick off Norris on Lap 23 and Albon one lap later, freeing him up to eventually catch the leaders by the closing stages before the clash with Pérez ended his race.
Verstappen could not replicate Sainz’s progress. On Lap 24, Verstappen tried a pass on Norris into the first corner, only for the McLaren to defend on the inside. Even with DRS exiting Turn 2, Verstappen couldn’t quite get close enough to go for a move on Norris. Verstappen cut the corner at Turn 15 and reported that his brakes weren’t working, which his engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, put down to high temperatures running behind Norris.
Verstappen’s attempt to overtake Norris on Lap 24 was the closest he would get. Norris, now behind Albon and benefiting from DRS off the back of the Williams, knew it would be tough to pass. So he used this phase of the race to look after his tires before Albon pitted, which then allowed Norris to unleash a series of quick laps.
“That saved my race,” Norris explained. “As soon as Alex got out of the way, I could pull away from Max, I could pull away from George (Russell) behind who was on much fresher tires. That allowed me to box ahead.”
Verstappen had already used up the best of his tires straight after pitting, and reported on the radio that he was struggling for rear grip. All the while, Norris found more time: He outpaced Verstappen in each of the last eight laps before pitting to grow the gap from 0.6 seconds to 3.7.
Norris’ ability to manage tires and keep them alive toward the end of the stint is an underrated quality. It allowed for his late charge on Verstappen at Imola, where he fell just short of the win, and it was on full display again here. “It’s probably one of my strengths in Formula One at the minute, and all year, has been my race pace and how I can manage my tires,” Norris said. “It’s not normally my strength not graining the tires, that’s normally my weakness. I grain them like hell!”
Once Norris pitted and emerged clear of Fernando Alonso, he had nothing but clear track to Verstappen, who was 15 seconds ahead. The pace difference was so great that Verstappen had no response to Norris’s Turn 1 move with three laps to go, resigning him to an unlikely points loss.
Combined with Piastri’s win, Norris helped McLaren move into the lead of the constructors’ championship for the first time since 2014. He even went as far as saying Ferrari, not Red Bull, would be its biggest threat in the coming races.
“Clearly we still had the fastest car today,” Norris said. “That’s a nice surprise for us and a good confidence boost.”
The good news for Verstappen
A seventh race without a victory — and just two podium finishes in that period — may not seem to offer much optimism for Verstappen and Red Bull. But there are a couple of silver linings to take from the weekend.
The breakthrough was understanding the issues that have made the RB20 car so difficult. The new floor proved on Friday that it had made a positive step to give both drivers more confidence. However, the setup changes made on Verstappen’s car ahead of qualifying took him in the wrong direction.
“We just paid the price for that, it’s probably as simple as that,” Verstappen told Sky Sports. “If you look at Checo, he had a much better race. It seemed like he was more comfortable.” Red Bull team principal Christian Horner claimed that without Norris holding him up, Pérez would likely have won the race.
“We tried something else with the setup going into qualifying, and it didn’t work out,” Verstappen said. “You win and lose as a team. Of course, I’m not happy with this performance, but on the other hand, sometimes it works out great. You make some final changes before qualifying, and it puts the car together. Unfortunately, this time it didn’t.”
But the greater ‘win’ for Verstappen is that, on a bad weekend where McLaren won the race, his championship lead only fell by three points.
Without the Q1 exit, Norris would likely have had the pace to get in the thick of the lead battle, giving him the chance to take a larger bite out of the points lead. Instead, a 62-point advantage drops to 59.
Those three points might become crucial by Abu Dhabi, the final race of the season. For now, Baku looks like a decent escape for Verstappen.
“You call it a bad weekend for me; we didn’t lose too many points,” Verstappen said. “So I guess that’s the positive to take. I also know we can do much better. We’ll try to do that next time.”
It means Verstappen leaves Baku one race closer to achieving his goal of defending his title and, perhaps more importantly, with valuable insights into why the weekend unraveled, even if time is running out to solve those problems.
The same championship discussion will, of course, play out next week in Singapore. The momentum remains with McLaren and its new constructors’ lead. But in the Verstappen-Norris fight, Baku will probably go down as a draw. It was only a negligible gain for Norris that could have been so much more painful for Verstappen.
Satisfying? No. But Verstappen will certainly take it for now.
Top photo: Dan Mullan/Getty Images
