McLaren will bring further upgrades to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and expects four teams to fight for victory when Formula 1 begins round 15 in Baku on Thursday, September 24.
Mercedes arrives with both championship leads, while Kimi Antonelli has won consecutive races. The Italian completed 57 laps to win the Spanish Grand Prix on September 13, beating Max Verstappen by 4.3 seconds. Lando Norris took third, 5 seconds behind Antonelli.
Baku gives McLaren an immediate chance to answer.
McLaren adds another Baku update
McLaren confirmed another upgrade for the September 24 to 26 weekend and predicted a four-way fight for victory. The supplied details did not name all four anticipated challengers, although current results place Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull Racing at the center of that conversation.
Those teams have filled every winning position across the opening 14 Grands Prix. Mercedes has claimed 10 victories, with eight for Antonelli and two for George Russell. Norris has scored McLaren's two wins, while Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc have one each for Ferrari.
Red Bull Racing is still seeking its first win of 2026. Verstappen again came closest in Spain, finishing second behind Antonelli. He sits sixth in the championship with 145 points, 25 behind Leclerc and 22 ahead of Oscar Piastri.
McLaren heads to Baku third in the constructors' standings with 306 points. Mercedes leads on 503, with Ferrari second on 358. McLaren therefore trails Ferrari by 52 points, while Mercedes is 197 points ahead of the Woking team.
Norris leads McLaren's pursuit
Norris has delivered both of McLaren's victories this season, winning in Hungary on July 26 and the Netherlands on August 23. He then finished third in Spain and arrives in Azerbaijan fourth in the drivers' standings with 186 points.
Hamilton is third, five points ahead. Russell holds second on 211, leaving Norris 25 points behind the Mercedes driver and 106 adrift of Antonelli.
Piastri is seventh with 120 points. The McLaren drivers have combined for the team's 306-point total, but their contrasting places in the drivers' standings show how the workload has been divided through the first 14 rounds.
The confirmed upgrade extends McLaren's development program ahead of the final nine Grands Prix after Azerbaijan. The announcement included no technical specifications, meaning its impact can first be measured when practice begins Thursday.
Antonelli takes an 81-point lead to Baku
Antonelli arrives in Baku with 292 points, 81 clear of Russell. Hamilton trails by 101 points, with Norris 106 behind.
The championship leader has won eight of the opening 14 races. His latest streak covers Monza on September 6 and Spain one week later, adding to earlier victories in China, Japan, Miami, Canada, Monaco and Belgium.
Russell remains Antonelli's closest challenger after victories in the season opener in Australia and the Austrian Grand Prix on June 28. Their combined results have carried Mercedes to 503 constructors' points, 145 ahead of Ferrari.
Hamilton has publicly ruled himself out of the title fight.
“There's no stopping Antonelli”.
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has nevertheless warned against declaring the championship settled. Even so, the standings give Antonelli a considerable cushion entering a street race where McLaren expects the competitive order to close up.
Ferrari and Red Bull remain contenders
Ferrari sits second in the constructors' championship, powered by Hamilton's 191 points and Leclerc's 167. Hamilton won at Barcelona-Catalunya on June 14, while Leclerc claimed the British Grand Prix on July 5.
Leclerc is fifth, 19 points behind Norris. Three Ferrari and McLaren drivers are separated by 24 points from third to fifth, forming another battle behind the Mercedes pair.
Red Bull's Baku outlook follows Verstappen's second place in Spain, his fifth runner-up result of the season. He also finished second in Austria, Hungary and the Spanish round, while podiums in Canada, Belgium and Italy have helped him reach 145 points.
Isack Hadjar sits eighth with 71 points. Red Bull also provided a positive update on his injury recovery, stating:
“Nothing wrong with his recovery”.
The supplied update did not confirm a change to Red Bull's Baku lineup.
Baku follows a different schedule
The Azerbaijan Grand Prix runs from Thursday, September 24, through Saturday, September 26. Practice opens Thursday, followed by final practice and qualifying on Friday. Saturday's race begins at 15:00 local time.
The timetable shortens the normal preparation cycle by bringing every competitive session forward one day. McLaren's engineers will also have little time to validate the new parts before qualifying on the Baku street circuit.
Azerbaijan hosts round 15 of the 23-race championship. Formula 1 then heads to the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia from October 2 to 4, before Singapore from October 9 to 11.
Nine Grands Prix remain after Saturday's race, and the season is scheduled to conclude in Abu Dhabi from December 4 to 6. McLaren will get its first reading on the latest package when opening practice starts in Baku on September 24.
