Lando Norris has taken his first win as world champion with a dominant fifteen-second victory at the Hungarian Grand Prix. The Englishman controlled the race after taking the lead a quarter of the way through, then retained the net lead of the race by undercutting Kimi Antonelli when he dived past at Piquet (Turn One) on lap forty.
Norris then seized control as he soon pulled ahead of Antonelli, who was attempting to one-stop the race, but as McLaren took control, Norris’s teammate Oscar Piastri retired from second after he crashed into the back of Carlos Sainz trying to lap the Williams, bringing out the virtual safety car.
At the time, Sainz was preoccupied in his duel with Alonso for fifteenth and ignored the blue flags to ram a mystified Piastri off the road. The Australian could not believe what had unfolded in front of him, but for Norris it was the ideal opportunity to snatch the lead. He did not hesitate to change tyres and rejoined ahead of Piastri.
Piastri continued to be a threat when the final nail in his frustrating afternoon came on lap fifty-six, when his gearbox failed and gifted Norris a free stop to change tyres and retain the lead.
After which the world champion was able to cruise to his first Grand Prix win of the year, following in Lewis Hamilton’s footsteps after winning his first championship, his first win in Budapest the following year.
As they McLaren’s fought for much of the race, there was renewed friction between the two teammates about the team’s ‘Paypa Rules’; Norris, the faster of the two, was refused to be let past by the team reluctant to intervene, except telling him to “calm down.” Piastri had won the start.
As Norris sailed to an easy victory, there was a close fight between Max Verstappen and Antonelli, the Red Bull driver eventually coming out on top, building a three-and-a-half-second gap during the closing stages. Charles Leclerc was fourth after Ferrari teammate Hamilton was demoted a place after a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane.
Verstappen unexpectedly finished second after struggling all weekend with the behaviour of his car. The entertaining battle for third, between Antonelli and a chasing Hamilton, was defused by a five-second penalty. Ferrari left once again questioning the strategy call, which resulted in the time penalty.
The Red Bull driver hung on, after a stunning final stint as Antonelli fended Hamilton off on the track to extend his championship led to fifty points over the Ferrari driver and George Russell, a further nine behind, who stalled at the start then fought back to seventh.
Norris said, “My pace today was probably some of the best pace I’ve ever had. The car was beautiful to drive and I felt very confident, so a great race and to get it back in terms of going long, which is certainly not what I was expecting, but the pace was so good I could always extend the stints, and fresh tyres then always won me the race.”
Antonelli, who finished second, “It was a tough race. It was really hard to overtake so we had to do something with strategy. Initially we tried to go for the one-stop, but then they told me the tyre was too much on the limit so we stopped and then we had VSC and the two Ferraris boxed and I knew it was going to be hard because I was on the hards and they were on the softs but luckily we managed to keep them behind.”
Ferrari were running second and fifth when Piastri brought the VSC out; in an attempt to try and challenge Norris with Hamilton, they made a late stop. That then unravelled as Hamilton failed to slow down in time before the pit lane speed limit, earning the time penalty.
Isack Hadjar finished sixth, thirty-five seconds behind, once the penalty was taken into account, behind Hamilton, as Russell had a horrid start which saw him drop to twentieth after his Mercedes went into anti-stall saw him clear the midfield to finish last of the top four teams.
The advantage of the top four meant the rest of the field all finished a lap down. Liam Lawson had been engaged in an equally entertaining scrap with Racing Bulls teammate Arvid Lindblad for seventh, but during the latter stages as they were being lapped, Nico Hulkenberg found his way past Lindblad for ninth and pulled twenty seconds clear.
Hulkenberg’s Audi teammate Gabriel Bortoleto just missed out on the points as he finished under a second outside the top ten, ahead of Pierre Gasly by nearly a second and a half.
The vastly upgraded car gave Aston Martin their best result of the season, Lance Stroll two and a quarter seconds ahead of his teammate Fernando Alonso. Franco Colapinto was a further lap down as he finished just under nine seconds ahead of Esteban Ocon.
The Williams duo finished seventeenth and eighteenth, Alex Albon nearly a quarter of a second ahead of Carlos Sainz. The Spaniard called on Williams to be inspired by Aston Martin’s turn around after yesterday they were both knocked out in Q1 in qualifying. Ollie Bearman was last of the finishers having been awarded a five-second penalty for ignoring blue flags.
Following the break and the Dutch Grand Prix, the long slog of double and triple headers begins, with the added race in Malaysia in October.
Related
· Hungarian GP – Qualifying Result
- HUNGARIAN GP – Lando Norris beats Lewis Hamilton by a hundredth to take pole in tight qualifying
- HUNGARIAN GP – Lando Norris fastest by a tenth in third practice with half a second covering the top five
- HUNGARIAN GP – Lewis Hamilton leads a Ferrari one-two, a tenth and a half ahead of teammate Charles Leclerc in second practice
- HUNGARIAN GP – Charles Leclerc fastest ahead of Max Verstappen by just under half a second in first practice
- Welcome to the Hungarian Grand Prix – 23/07/2026
