Lando Norris data reveals how vulnerable Max Verstappen was reeled in at Baku

Lando Norris successfully completed a great comeback at the Azerbaijan GP. The McLaren driver finished P4 ahead of Max Verstappen and set the fastest lap after starting the race in P15, following grid drops for Lewis Hamilton and Pierre Gasly.

Norris and McLaren were the big names of the race on the Baku street circuit. Oscar Piastri took the win and Lando Norris finished P4, ahead of Max Verstappen, and now the Papaya team are leading the Constructors’ Championship ahead of Red Bull.

Azerbaijan GP data: How Lando Norris caught Max Verstappen in Baku

Norris also broke his curse with race starts this season, too. In the first two laps of the race he had already moved up four positions; two of them on Lap 1, overtaking Nico Hülkenberg and Daniel Ricciardo.

He later took advantage of a touch between Lance Stroll and Yuki Tsunoda that resulted in both cars being damaged to gain another two positions and climb to P11 with Oliver Bearman in P10, five seconds ahead.

It didn’t take long for Lando to close the gap to Kevin Magnussen’s replacement this weekend and, thanks to running in clean air, he caught him on lap 8. From there, it was a new race for Norris who had started on the hard tyre to try a different strategy to his direct rivals, who were all on the medium tyre.

Ahead of Lando in P9 was Alex Albon, also on the hard tyre. Williams played two different strategies with their two drivers very cleverly to maximise their chances of scoring points in Azerbaijan.

Unluckily for Norris, Albon showed great pace in the first stint on the hard tyre and could not get close enough before Turn 16 to attempt an overtake on him at any point.

As the drivers on the medium tyre pitted, Norris and Albon virtually moved up the race pecking order, but Norris was unable to close the gap to Albon by more than three seconds.

Albon lost almost two seconds in Sector 1 on lap 18 after coming under pressure from Oscar Piastri, who had pitted and wanted to lose as little time as possible to Charles Leclerc who was still in the lead.

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When all the top four positions settled down, Lando was +1.5s behind Albon having even helped Piastri to hold P2 after his pit-stop following Sergio Perez’s undercut attempt.

But more importantly, Norris was also taking advantage of Albon’s block to hold off Max Verstappen, who was unable to overtake him on hard tyres 12 laps fresher than his own.

This in turn caused George Russell to close in menacingly on Max Verstappen. Albon made his pit stop on lap 32, but exited in traffic behind Nico Hülkenberg and this doomed the rest of his race, which still saw him finish in a great P8 just behind Fernando Alonso.

Russell continued to cut time on Verstappen and on lap 34 overtook him on track. At this point, Lando started to pick up his pace and set several consecutive personal best lap times to ensure he would come out just behind Max Verstappen with no traffic after making his pit stop on lap 38.

With 12 laps to go and 15 seconds to cut off Max, the big question was whether Lando’s tyre could hold a good pace without falling into a ‘cliff’ before the end of the race. And it did hold. He was almost two seconds per lap faster on average from his stop to the end of the race.

Setting fastest lap after fastest lap until reaching a lap time of 1:45.255, Lando got to the back of Max Verstappen’s RB20 and overtook him on lap 49.

Lando’s bad luck in qualifying, with the momentary yellow flag caused by Esteban Ocon, was partially made up for his good luck in the final stages of the Azerbaijan GP race.

After Lando’s overtake, Red Bull stopped Max to fit the soft tyre and snatch the fastest race lap from Norris as they had a free pit stop with Fernando Alonso more than 22 seconds behind in P8.

Soon after, Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez crashed, causing the Virtual Safety Car which lasted until the chequered flag.

This meant two more positions gained for Lando Norris who climbed up to P4 and Max Verstappen could not do the fastest lap of the race but finished P5 behind Lando.

All in all, an incredible comeback for Norris who needed a race like this to gain a confidence boost. He has cut another three points from Max Verstappen in the Drivers’ standings and the gap now stands at 59 points.

It’s still quite a lot to cover, but with seven Grands Prix, and three more Sprints to come, and seeing the lack of performance of Verstappen and Red Bull compared to McLaren since coming back from the summer break, Lando must not relax and must keep pushing as he did in Baku if he really wants to stay in the fight for his first F1 World Championship.