Race Report: Norris holds off Piastri for Hungarian GP win

Lando Norris held off Oscar Piastri to take McLaren’s 200th win at the Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix. The McLaren duo had a dominant race leading the Mercedes of George Russel home to the podium.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc led from pole and looked to have pace in hand but the second half of the race left him on the outside looking in at the podium.

Win

A big win for McLaren securing their 200th F1 victory but it initially looked like it might be a tall order. Lando’s first lap misfortune led to a 1-stopper call and this put him among the leaders during the pit stop cycle. The question was, could he make his Hard compounds last for the rest of the race. The answer was yes. Oscar mounted a mighty challenge but Lando held him off to take the win. Kudos to the team for a 1.9s pit stop!

A win for Mercedes who have looked a bit ragged of late found the podium for George Russell as Leclerc’s pace eroded in real time. A good result for George who is still looking for a long-term contract. Also, Kimi Antonelli in P10 was also good for the rookie.

A big win for Aston Martin who’s upgrades seemed to work a treat at Hungary. A P5 for Fernando Alonso and a P7 for Lance Stroll was a great result for the team who needed a resurgence given their recent trajectory.

A huge win for Gabriel Bortoleto who has been on a run of good fortune of late with a P6 result for Sauber. The rookie took a little while to heat up but he is now really showing why Sauber signed him with terrific race results. More points for Sauber!

A win for Liam Lawson who beat Max Verstappen finishing in P8. Liam has also started to show results at Racing Bulls and beat his teammate, the much vaunted Isack Hadjar.

A win for Jamie Chadwick who brought a lot to the broadcast with insight and keen observation which, to be honest, is quite different from Naomi. Sky should bring Jamie in as a regular and let Naomi do the scripted feature pieces.

Fail

A big fail for Red Bull and Max Verstappen who looked out of sorts all weekend. Max had a good race given his starting position but ultimately it has been interesting to see them continue to decline over the first half of the season despite upgrades. Yuki was even a bigger victim of Hungary.

A fail for Ferrari who had pole position and looked to have pace in hand but in what Charles Leclerc said was a chassis issue, he sunk backwards to miss out on the podium finishing P4. Charles seemed to know what the issue was during the race but after the race he reversed his hunch and said it was the chassis. George Russell reckons the car was set too low and they increased the tire pressure ot raise ride height but also cost a lot of pace. Bernie Collins said that setting an engine mode to reduce pace down the straight will also reduce aero compression to reduce the plank wear.

A fail for Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton. I understand Lewis was self deprecating after qualifying but I was hoping he could pull off a great recovery drive like he did at Spa. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. It takes time to get baked in to a new team so let’s hope that time will deliver.

Not a good race for Williams, Haas or Alpine full stop.

WTH

Not sure how much padding is on the knuckle portion of the gloves but maybe they could put a list more in there without creating an issue while driving. Poor Isack Hadjar got hit by gravel and that has to hurt!

There is strategy and then there is tactics. I did enjoy watching the strategy of each team turn into tactics in real time. Lando’s race was a perfect example.

I’m not sure I noticed Nico Hulkenberg’s jump start.

McLaren finish 21s ahead of everyone? Yikes!

There was a lot of Guns and Roses puns in this broadcast and maybe the biggest pun was having Axl Rose wave the flag. 🙂

Pirelli Report:

“The first part of the season came to an end with a very interesting race, with three drivers fighting for the win. In the end, victory went to Norris, beating team-mate Piastri by a whisker. The two McLaren drivers were on different strategies, the Englishman going for a one-stop, the Australian two. On paper the two-stop was quicker, but the cooler, by about ten degrees, temperatures compared to Friday free practice, slightly closed the gap between the two options, also in part because thermal degradation was reduced for all three compounds compared to what we saw two days ago. Honestly, we still felt the two-stop was best, you just need to look at the gap that Alonso built up, in fifth, compared to Russell. The exception was Norris, who opted to only stop once, after finding himself fifth after the opening lap. The small performance difference between the Medium and Hard along with the clear difficulty in overtaking with cars running pretty similar race pace, made it worth risking an unconventional strategy because at that point, he had nothing to lose.

All things considered, today we still managed to have a race in which different strategies were in play for the win, which made the second half of the race particularly exciting from a tactical point of view, even if not that spectacular in absolute terms.

Before we too go on the summer break following a very busy first part of the season, we still have one more task on track, here at the Hungaroring. On Tuesday 5 and Wednesday 6 August, we will run a test session aimed at 2026 tyre development. On the menu, validating constructions, as these must be homologated by 1^st September and development of the softest compounds, especially from C3 to C5. Supporting us in this on the first day will be McLaren with Norris at the wheel and Racing Bulls with Lawson driving. On the second day Ferrari will run Leclerc, while Alpine is doing both days, the first with Aron at the wheel, the second with both Colapinto and Gasly.”

Hungarian GP Results:

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