Norris beats Verstappen and Antonelli to victory in dramatic Hungarian GP

Lando Norris claimed his and McLaren’s first Grand Prix victory of 2026 in Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix, taking the chequered flag ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli – after mid-race drama and a late retirement for team mate Oscar Piastri.

Polesitter Norris spent the first half of the race in Piastri’s mirrors, having been jumped at Turn 2 on the opening lap – the latter doing just enough to hold onto the lead thereafter, and McLaren resisting Norris’ calls to be ushered through.

However, the intra-team battle was flipped on its head just after the midway point when Piastri – fresh from his second pit stop – encountered traffic in the form of Carlos Sainz in the first sector, and dramatically made contact with the Williams.

That moment, added to Norris’ sublime pace in clear air ahead of his own second stop, swung the race in the reigning World Champion’s favour, before Piastri’s day ended in despair thanks to an apparent gearbox problem.

A Virtual Safety Car (VSC) triggered by Piastri’s stoppage led to more pit lane action, with Verstappen and Antonelli (who had just swapped tyres) staying out to take second and third respectively, ahead of three-stopping Ferrari pair Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc.

Hamilton had initially emerged from that final stop ahead of Antonelli, only to cede the position after replays showed he had reached the relevant VSC white line at the end of the start/finish straight just behind the Mercedes.

A five-second penalty for speeding in the pits ended any hopes Hamilton had of finishing on the podium, even if he pressed on and harried Antonelli to the flag, with Leclerc also edging ahead for P4 once the sanction was applied.

Isack Hadjar took sixth place in the other Red Bull machine, with George Russell winding up P7 after a dreadful start to the race – due to the anti-stall kicking in – saw him drop as low as 21st.

Racing Bulls scored another double points finish with Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad, who placed eighth and 10th, around Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg, while the German’s team mate, Gabriel Bortoleto, just missed out on a reward in 11th.

In their most encouraging display of the season so far, Aston Martin pair Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso took their updated cars to P13 and P14, splitting the Alpines of Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto, and beating both Haas and Williams cars.

Piastri was left to watch the final 15 laps from the sidelines following his retirement, with the Cadillacs of Valtteri Bottas (overheating brakes) and Sergio Perez (an issue at the front-left) also failing to finish.

AS IT HAPPENED

At the end of an ultra-close Qualifying session around the Hungaroring circuit, it was Norris who claimed pole position by just 0.012 seconds over Hamilton, with Leclerc taking third and championship leader Antonelli settling for fourth.

However, drama followed when both Hamilton and Antonelli were hit with three-place grid drops by the stewards – the Ferrari driver penalised for impeding Piastri and the Mercedes driver punished for failing to slow sufficiently under yellow flags.

That meant Norris would lead the field away from Leclerc, Piastri and Verstappen, with Hamilton demoted to fifth over Russell, and Antonelli dropping to seventh. Perez, meanwhile, moved from the back of the grid to the pit lane after set-up changes.

Just before 1500 local time, when the formation lap got under way, it was revealed that Norris, Piastri and Verstappen had chosen medium starting tyres, but Leclerc and Hamilton went aggressive with softs – hoping to benefit on the long run down to Turn 1. Bortoleto, Alonso, Sainz and Stroll also bolted on softs, with the rest of the pack taking mediums.

At lights out, polesitter Norris made a clean getaway to retain the lead, while Piastri got the jump on Leclerc – despite their differing tyres – to follow his team mate into the first corner, and Verstappen went wheel-to-wheel with the two Ferraris.

Then, after getting a run on Norris approaching Turn 2, Piastri surged into the lead via a cut-back move at the exit, where Hamilton also completed a pass on team mate Leclerc for fourth and appeared to bang wheels with third-placed Verstappen.

Further back, it was an awful start for Russell, who tumbled down the order from sixth to 21st. “What happened there?” Russell sighed over the radio, with his day made a whole lot more challenging. “Anti-stall,” came the response from his engineer.

As the race settled down, Piastri sat just over a second clear of Norris, followed by Verstappen, Hamilton and Leclerc. Antonelli held sixth, having gained a place due to Russell’s poor start, from Hadjar, Lawson, Lindblad and Hulkenberg in the final top-10 positions.

“The damping failed, for sure,” Verstappen mentioned over the radio at this point, adding a swear word for good measure. “Please do something about these shifts,” he said shortly afterwards. Hamilton duly continued to hound the Red Bull amid those struggles but, despite several half-attempts at Turn 1 and 2, he could not quite find a way past.

McLaren were also busy on the radio as the gap between Norris and Piastri stabilised. “Currently we are thinking Plan A,” was the message to Piastri, amid the fine line between one and two stops. “The tyres feel good,” he replied. Sharing his own thoughts, Norris said: “I’m much faster, but yeah… dirty air.”

By Lap 13, Russell had worked his way back up to 11th, dispatching the Williams, Haas and Alpine drivers, as well as Alonso’s Aston Martin and Bortoleto’s Audi. At the very back, early-stopper Stroll was battling with the Cadillacs of Bottas and Perez.

A lap later, the first front-running pit stop of the race was made when Hamilton came in to swap soft tyres for hards. He rejoined in ninth, just behind Lindblad, but managed to swiftly move past the Racing Bulls rookie with a sweeping overtake around the outside of Turn 5.

Verstappen responded on Lap 15, also moving to hards from mediums, and filing back onto the track just behind Hamilton. At the start of the following lap, though, Verstappen surprised Hamilton with a bold pass into Turn 1. “It’s nice action, but it’s not right,” Verstappen subsequently commented, seemingly unhappy with Hamilton’s late defence.

Piastri and Leclerc both pitted on Lap 17, followed by Norris next time around, which in turn released the yet-to-stop Antonelli and Hadjar. Piastri narrowly held onto his advantage over Norris at the pit exit, from Verstappen, Hamilton and Leclerc.

While Hadjar pitted after effectively glueing the front pack together, Antonelli continued for a few more laps. “He’s likely to try a one-stop,” Piastri was told by the McLaren pit wall. But a stop for hards on Lap 22 suggested Antonelli would also be pitting twice.

Piastri thus reclaimed the lead, but came under serious pressure from Norris over the next handful of laps. Verstappen gradually fell away in third, from Hamilton, Leclerc and Antonelli, as Russell climbed to seventh before pitting for hards on Lap 28.

Amid that action at the front, the day’s first retirement came when Bottas reported smoke in the cockpit and crawled his way back to the pits. Cadillac confirmed shortly afterwards that overheating brakes were the suspected cause.

Lap 30 brought the second stop of the day and another set of hards for Hamilton, who had been falling into the clutches of team mate Leclerc – the Monegasque feeling that he was losing valuable time and pushing to do something different strategy-wise.

Up front, Piastri got told to use his pace in response to Hamilton’s stop, to which he replied: “I don’t really have any.” A second or so behind, Norris, who had just survived a wide moment at Turn 4, urged McLaren to let him clear Piastri. “I’m miles faster,” he argued.

On Lap 33, Piastri pitted for another set of hards, giving Norris some clear air – and a potential chance to build a tyre offset for the final stint. At Ferrari, Hamilton was concerned about his second stop coming too early, asking his engineer: “Am I going to be in trouble at the end of the race?”

Leclerc stopped for the second time on Lap 37, while Norris, Verstappen and Antonelli all ploughed on. Crucially, Norris was lapping significantly faster than team mate Piastri in this phase, despite the latter’s fresher tyres – opening up a net pit stop.

Drama then ensued when Piastri made contact with Sainz at the exit of Turn 2, while blue flags were in play. “Get out of the ******* way, you idiot! Oh my God!” Piastri shouted over the radio, as the race continued to shift towards team mate Norris.

After making his second stop at the end of Lap 39, Norris had more than enough in hand to rejoin ahead of Piastri, giving him a net race lead. In the meantime, the stewards confirmed that the incident between Piastri and Sainz had been put under investigation.

As a frustrated Piastri came to terms with the situation, Verstappen pitted again – the Dutchman taking on softs. After asking if that red-marked rubber could make it to the end, he was told about the potential to “have some fun” in the closing laps.

“Can you advise me a bit more? There’s something that feels wrong with the car,” Leclerc asked as the race entered its final 20 laps. While Ferrari looked into the situation, there was definitely something wrong for Perez, who retired with an issue at the front-left of his car.

With Antonelli continuing, and being warned about track limits, the big question now was whether the Mercedes man would stop again. That answer followed when he pitted on Lap 54 and questioned the call. “We don’t think we have the tyre life,” said his engineer in response.

A couple of laps later, Piastri’s day went from bad to worse when he encountered a gearbox problem and ground to a halt. With the VSC deployed to cover the stricken McLaren, Norris, Hamilton and Leclerc all took the opportunity to pit again.

As cars filtered back out onto the track, Norris retained the lead over Verstappen, Hamilton, Antonelli and Leclerc. Replays then showed that Antonelli appeared to reach the white line at the end of the start/finish straight before Hamilton, who returned the position.

Norris controlled proceedings over the final few laps to finish some 15 seconds clear of Verstappen, bagging his first Grand Prix victory as F1 World Champion in the process, while Antonelli held onto third over Hamilton.

Hamilton was nonetheless given a five-second penalty for pit lane speeding, dropping him behind team mate Leclerc at the finish. Behind them, Hadjar placed sixth in his Red Bull, and Russell recovered to seventh, having at one point been 21st.

Lawson and Lindblad again went wheel-to-wheel in the closing laps – the rookie, like Bortoleto behind him, attempting a one-stop. Lawson’s pace proved too strong in the end, with the New Zealander taking eighth, Hulkenberg also slotting ahead for ninth and his first points of 2026, and Linblad crossing the line in 10th.

Bortoleto just missed out on a point in P11, followed by Gasly, the more competitive Aston Martins of Stroll and Alonso, and Colapinto, while the Haas and Williams cars of Ocon, Albon, Sainz and Bearman were the final finishers – Sainz being given a five-second penalty for his incident with Piastri, and Bearman the same sanction for ignoring blue flags.

Piastri, Perez and Bottas were the three retirements due to their aforementioned respective issues, with Cadillac due to investigate the exact cause of the Mexican’s DNF post-race.

Key quote

“I’m tired! What happened?” Norris smiled post-race, taking it back to the first lap. “I don’t know what happened, to be honest. I just kept losing the rear. I had like three or four big snaps. It felt horrible and, of course, Oscar did a good job to get the cutback and get back past, so I think I was just a bit wide in the dirt – game over for the first lap.

“But man, I was pushing like hell to try and force him into a mistake or something. 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. 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. I’m just happy to be back and see the number one again.”

What’s next

Formula 1 will now embark on its summer break before returning to action at the Dutch Grand Prix, which will take place on August 21-23. Head to the RACE HUB to find out how you can follow the action from Zandvoort.