Lando Norris secured his first Grand Prix victory of 2026 at the Hungarian GP after early pacesetter Oscar Piastri lost his lead to backmarkers and ultimately dropped out with a gearbox issue.
Piastri overtook pole-sitter Norris off the line using a cutback at the second corner and dictated the pace for the first half of the race, while Norris looked faster but found it impossible to overtake on the narrow Hungarian track.
Max Verstappen claimed third place ahead of the Ferrari pair of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, who was squeezed between his opponents. At the same time, George Russell endured a nightmare start when his Mercedes went into anti-stall, tumbling down to 19th.
The Ferrari drivers opted for soft tyres compared to the medium compound chosen by other leading cars; however, being caught behind Verstappen prevented Hamilton and Leclerc from utilizing their tyre speed advantage.
On the 14th lap, Hamilton made a tactical early pitstop for the hard compound. Verstappen reacted on the next lap, and although he fell victim to Hamilton’s undercut, the Dutchman immediately threw his car down the inside at Turn 1 to take the place back.
Once the initial pit stops settled, the top five positions remained unchanged, except for Kimi Antonelli who ran a longer opening stint to attempt a single-stop plan. However, the young Italian’s lap times dropped off too severely, forcing him to pit on lap 23 for hard tyres—far too early to go the distance in the 70-lap race. Russell, in the meantime, had fought his way back up to seventh.
Oscar Piastri behind the wheel of his McLaren
Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images
Inter-team tension at McLaren as Piastri relinquishes first place
Following the first pit sequence, Norris continued to hound Piastri closely, though the British driver momentarily lost grip at Turn 4 on lap 29, taking a minor trip off track that gave his Australian teammate some brief respite.
This brief mistake prompted Norris’s race engineer to urge him to calm down, as the team felt he was trying to demonstrate his superior pace over the leading car. However, with no real pressure from Verstappen behind and Piastri having earned the lead cleanly at the start, McLaren showed no interest in issuing team orders.
An eager Norris requested an earlier stop to pull off an undercut, which the pit wall declined. They did, however, call Piastri in for his second pit stop on lap 34. This dropped Piastri right into traffic as he encountered Carlos Sainz and Fernando Alonso battling in sector one, with Sainz holding the racing line and moving into Piastri’s path.
“Get out of the f***ing way you idiot, oh my god,” an angry Piastri vented over the team radio. Although his car was undamaged, the time lost allowed Norris to execute a successful overcut when he pitted. Seeing Norris rejoin the track ahead of him, Piastri directed his sarcasm at his own strategists, thanking them for putting him in such a spot. Sainz was later handed a minor five-second penalty for ignoring blue flags.
Norris went on to overtake title leader Antonelli, whose risky single-stop bid was falling apart. Piastri, however, could not secure a McLaren one-two finish as he suffered a dramatic gearbox failure on lap 56, ending a highly disappointing weekend in Budapest.
The subsequent virtual safety car created late drama in the fight for the lower podium spots behind Norris, who held an ample margin to easily make an extra stop for used softs.
Max Verstappen in the Red Bull Racing car
Photo by: Steven Tee / LAT Images via Getty Images
As Antonelli had already given up on the one-stop strategy, Hamilton briefly ran second before also pitting for fresh rubber, while Verstappen remained on-track to secure track position. Hamilton then lost third place to Antonelli as he exited the pits, while Leclerc settled into fifth after his third stop of the race.
Out front, Norris easily managed his advantage to claim his and McLaren’s maiden grand prix victory of the 2026 season, although the event will surely lead to an extensive post-race analysis at the Woking base.
Verstappen recovered to a surprising second-place finish after battling handling issues with his RB22 all weekend. A spectacular duel for third between Antonelli and Hamilton was cut short when the Ferrari driver was handed a five-second penalty for speeding in the pitlane, which demoted him to fifth behind Leclerc in the final classification.
Isack Hadjar took a quiet sixth for Red Bull, while Russell salvaged seventh after his dreadful start, although he still lost ground in the championship fight.
Liam Lawson led the midfield pack in eighth for Racing Bulls, ahead of Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg and Arvid Lindblad, finishing off an exciting four-car fight between the teams, with Gabriel Bortoleto taking 11th.
Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso secured a promising 13th and 14th for Aston Martin in their heavily updated car, while both Cadillacs driven by Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas joined Piastri on the sidelines after their brakes caught fire.
Formula 1 now enters its summer recess, with Antonelli leading the championship by 50 points over Hamilton and 59 points over Russell. The season will kick off again on August 23 with the final running of the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort.
Hungarian F1 GP – Race Results
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