Lando Norris weathered a troublesome early portion of the race to comfortably win the Hungarian Grand Prix, his first victory this season.
Charles Leclerc had a poor start off the grid, having dropped from 2nd to 5th as the drivers headed into turn 1, though he wouldn’t be the driver who had the worst start, as Russell’s car went into anti-stall, and caused him to drop down to 21st place.
Lando Norris initially got a good start off the line and exited turn 1 in 1st place, but would lose the lead to teammate Piastri just moments later after going very wide at turn 2, having to settle for 2nd for the time being.
Aside from George Russell making a number of overtakes in his recovery drive, the early portion of the race were quite uneventful, characterised by Hamilton being stuck behind Verstappen in 3rd place, unable to make any overtake despite the Red Bull’s lack of pace, which was playing right in the hands of McLaren in 1st and 2nd.
Hamilton would pit at the end of lap 13 to try and undercut Verstappen ahead, going from a set of softs onto some hard tyres. Verstappen would try and respond just one lap later, and while Hamilton would be slightly held up by Lindblad, he would get the undercut done.
Verstappen wasn’t going to give up the position that easily though, and as the drivers came into turn 1 on lap 16, Verstappen would make an almighty dive onto the inside of Hamilton, and would just squeeze through back into an effective 3rd place.
After Piastri and Norris had pit, the top 4 were only separated by just a couple of seconds, all being held up by Isack Hadjar, who had yet to pit. This played into the hands of Verstappen, who was able to maintain a closer gap to the leaders, and once both McLarens had passed him, he let Verstappen by while continuing to hold up Hamilton for an extra couple of corners.
Hamilton began to look quite uncomfortable on the hard tyres. First he lost the 1 second gap to Verstappen to get the extra boost in his battery, then he continued to allow the gap to stretch and eventually Leclerc would find himself within 1 second of Hamilton in 4th.
Despite no overtake coming from Leclerc, he would take 4th place on lap 30 after Hamilton would come into the pits for a 2nd time. Hamilton would find himself behind Hadjar once again after the pit stop, minimising the gains he could have made with the undercut.
McLaren would respond to Hamilton’s pit stop a few laps later, initially bringing in Piastri from the lead, much to Norris’ dismay who felt that he was faster than his teammate, having managed to catch right back up to the lead after losing time from going off track a couple laps earlier.
Oscar Piastri’s chances of winning the race were hurt while overtaking lapped traffic, as Carlos Sainz had not checked his mirrors and drove wide into the McLaren driver, which lost him a bunch of time despite not causing any damage.
Norris would pit on lap 40, just two laps after Piastri’s incident with Sainz, and would come out comfortably ahead of his teammate, and with a 7 lap tyre offset in his advantage.
After getting ahead of Piastri, Norris really began to pull away from the rest of the field. Despite needing to still overtake Antonelli on track, who seemed like he could be trying a one stop strategy, it wasn’t too difficult of an overtake from the McLaren driver, who then continued to grow his lead more and more as the race progressed.
While it seemed that the one stop was initially the plan, Mercedes decided that Antonelli would not have the tyre life to take his car to the end of the race, and the championship leader would pit at the end of lap 53, dropping to 6th place behind Leclerc.
The battle for 2nd place was starting to heat up towards the end of the race, as Hamilton was starting to gain on Piastri, while Verstappen was gaining on Hamilton, while the tyre offset on Antonelli’s car could mean that he was still a factor for the position.
Piastri’s position in this battle would come to a sudden end though, as his gearbox would give up on lap 56, and cause him to retire from the race and cause a Virtual Safety Car to be brought out.
This would provide an opportunity for Norris and both Ferraris to come into the pits, getting better tyres than everyone else around them. Importantly for Hamilton too, he was able to come back out ahead of Antonelli and maintained a place on the podium.
However, it seemed that Hamilton being ahead was a mistake, and Hamilton was asked to give the position back, hurting his chances of possibly getting 2nd place.
Hamilton was trying to keep within touching distance of Antonelli as the two looked to make good gains to Verstappen, and had been doing a decent job of it in the immediate laps after the VSC, but would somewhat lose the rear of the car at turn 2 on lap 60, which lost him a chunk of time.
Things would go from bad to worse for Hamilton, as he would find himself under investigation for speeding under the pit lane, which are usually slam dunk penalties, and would be in this scenario, as Hamilton gets a 5 second penalty.
Lapped traffic proved to be a significant factor for what was now a two horse race for 2nd place, as Antonelli was getting significantly slowed down by the back markers, not only causing the gap to Verstappen to increase, but allowing Hamilton to stay close to him.
Hamilton’s 5 second penalty would come to haunt him, as while Lando Norris would comfortably take the chequered flag ahead of Verstappen and Antonelli, Leclerc would finish within 5 seconds of his teammate, taking 4th place from Hamilton.
The win would be Norris’ first since the 2025 Sao Paulo Grand Prix, and the Hungaroring becomes the first track that he has won multiple races at.
The results mean that Antonelli’s championship lead grows an extra 5 points to a comfortable 50 points ahead of Lewis Hamilton as the sport enters its annual summer break.
The next race will take place in 4 weeks time as F1 heads to Zandvoort for the Dutch Grand Prix, which will be held on August 23.
