The Baku Straight Deficit and Mercedes Gap
Baku’s back straight has a way of exposing any team that gets its top-end numbers wrong, and this weekend it exposed McLaren. George Russell strung together a lap that opened an eight-tenth gap over Oscar Piastri, with Lando Norris trailing the Mercedes driver by an even bigger margin. The McLaren Baku straight speed deficit was the story of the session: Russell was clocked up to 10km/h faster than Piastri on the ultra-long straight that decides so much of a Baku lap.
That kind of gap doesn’t come from one scruffy sector. It comes from how a car is built to run down a straight that rewards low drag and a strong top speed above almost everything else. McLaren has led the constructors’ standings for most of the year, so a deficit this visible against Mercedes needed an explanation the paddock could follow quickly.
Shorter Gearing and the Unused Mid-Season Joker
The answer sits in the gearbox. The MCL40 has run shorter gear ratios than the Mercedes all season, a setup decision made months before anyone knew a track like Baku would punish it this badly. Formula 1 teams get one joker each year to change their gear ratios outside the usual homologation rules, and McLaren chose not to spend it.
Neil Houldey admitted as much when asked about the choice. “If we had to do it again, I think we would re-ratio to be closer to where Mercedes are,” he said. That’s a fairly direct admission mid-season: the gearing call looked reasonable when it was made, and it looks costly now that a straight-heavy track has turned up on the calendar.
Shorter ratios help traction and acceleration out of slow corners, which matters at plenty of circuits. Baku isn’t really one of them. Its main straight is long enough that a taller top gear and lower drag matter far more than a snappy pull off the final corner, and Mercedes had clearly built for that trade-off better than McLaren had.
Engine Power Deficit and Lando Norris Fuel Injection Issue
Gearing wasn’t the only factor at play. McLaren also found a power deficit specifically on Norris’s car during qualifying, and the team believes it was linked to a fuel injection issue. That would help explain why Norris lost more time to Russell than Piastri did, on top of whatever the gearing cost both cars equally.
A fuel injection problem affects how the engine delivers power under load, so even a small fault can cost real speed on a straight where every kilometre per hour counts. McLaren hasn’t confirmed a definitive cause beyond identifying the suspected link, and nothing in the evidence points to a wider reliability concern beyond the qualifying session. You can read the full technical detail in why McLaren lost straight-line speed in Baku.
Long-Term Technical Implications and Ratios Strategy
Andrea Stella also had to explain why McLaren’s recent aerodynamic upgrades didn’t show up fully in the Baku numbers. “The upgrades worked well throughout the weekend, we added some lap time to the car,” he said, before setting out why the gains were harder to see in Azerbaijan specifically. “Somehow, we didn’t see the effect of the upgrades because our car in general does not perform very well in these kinds of corners, so we would have needed a much bigger set to make a difference in Baku.”
That’s a useful distinction for anyone judging the weekend on lap time alone. The upgrade package is doing its job elsewhere on the calendar; Baku’s mix of a long straight and awkward medium-speed corners simply isn’t the kind of layout where it shows up best.
With the joker already unused, McLaren won’t get another free swing at its gear ratios until the usual homologation window resets. Houldey’s comments make clear the team already knows the current setup will keep costing McLaren Baku straight speed at circuits built like this one. The same trade-off between traction and top end will keep shaping results wherever the straights run long. Fine margins locked into a gearbox back in winter can still decide a session deep into the championship.
McLaren’s momentum away from the cockpit has been strong too, with McLaren’s commercial success off track continuing to build. Norris himself has had plenty to occupy him beyond qualifying trim, following Norris evaluating cross-discipline driving in a McLaren hypercar.
