Lando Norris answered the big question over McLaren’s pace coming into final practice for Formula 1’s 2025 Azerbaijan Grand Prix by emphatically setting the fastest time in FP3.
Norris and F1 championship rival Oscar Piastri both endured a difficult Friday at Baku, losing valuable track time to wall strikes and struggling to hook laps together.
They weren’t much of a factor in the early stages of final practice either, as Norris complained his car was “sketchy” everywhere.
Piastri didn’t really hook a single lap together cleanly until the closing moments of the session.
That allowed Friday pacesetter Ferrari to lead the way for much of FP3, with Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton trading fastest times after Ollie Bearman’s Haas had made the initial running on the hard tyre on a very windy and difficult circuit.
After Friday practice, Ferrari has trimmed Hamilton's rear wing to align him with Leclerc's lower downforce wing.
Leclerc narrowly avoided a puncture from touching the wall entering Turn 7, lowering the benchmark to 1m42.3 before Max Verstappen hooked up three excellent sectors to break into the 1m41s - helped by a tow from Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin across the finish line.
Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mate Yuki Tsunoda by contrast shipped nearly a second to Verstappen through the first two sectors and couldn’t get anywhere near the top 10, ending the session 16th and clearly still struggling to get comfortable in the trimmed-out Red Bull over a single lap.
Alex Albon hooked up an impressive lap just after that to go second, quicker than Verstappen through the first two sectors, but was shuffled back to seventh as others - including Verstappen - made further gains.
Verstappen got down to a 1m41.445s best before the end, but that was still 0.222s down on a mighty lap from Norris, who didn’t benefit from a tow through the final sector…
Piastri didn’t look as comfortable as Norris in the later part of the session, where the McLarens were clearly working much better after some earlier setup changes, but was briefly up to second thanks to a tow from Franco Colapinto’s Alpine before Verstappen reasserted himself.
Piastri then managed to hook up a decent enough lap at the end to go third, without the aid of a tow and just 0.032s down on Verstappen’s ultimate best.
Hamilton managed to get Ferrari back up to fourth in the closing seconds, but Leclerc found an escape road on his final flying lap so failed to improve and ended the session 10th.
In between them came the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli and George Russell in fifth and sixth - Russell complaining of a lack of comfort on the brakes - plus Bearman’s Haas and Liam Lawson’s Racing Bulls (via a spin) in eighth and ninth.
Liam Lawson goes spinning at Turn 16 😵💫
— Formula 1 (@F1) September 20, 2025
The wind at that corner has been causing trouble for the drivers all session #F1 #AzerbaijanGP pic.twitter.com/GAIzscqD0j
FP3 results
1 Lando Norris (McLaren) 1m41.223s
2 Max Verstappen (Red Bull) +0.222s
3 Oscar Piastri (McLaren) +0.254s
4 Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) +0.276s
5 Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) +0.653s
6 George Russell (Mercedes) +0.741s
7 Alex Albon (Williams) +0.760s
8 Ollie Bearman (Haas) +0.762s
9 Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) +0.923s
10 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) +0.986s
11 Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls) +1.044s
12 Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber) +1.205s
13 Carlos Sainz (Williams) +1.263s
14 Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) +1.368s
15 Franco Colapinto (Alpine) +1.566s
16 Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull) +1.617s
17 Esteban Ocon (Haas) +1.645s
18 Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber) +1.837s
19 Pierre Gasly (Alpine) +2.099s
20 Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) +2.127s
