Hungary, July 26 (IANS) Lando Norris claimed his and McLaren’s first Formula 1 victory of the 2026 season with a composed drive at the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday, capitalising on team-mate Oscar Piastri’s misfortune to beat Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli to the chequered flag.
Norris, who started the race in pole position, lost the lead to Piastri at Turn 2 on the first lap and for a large part of the first half of the race stayed tucked behind the Australian. Although Norris was at times faster, McLaren decided not to change drivers and so let Piastri take control of the race from first place.
Just after the halfway point the situation among the cars changed. After carrying out his second pit stop, Piastri came into contact with Carlos Sainz’s Williams in the traffic in the first part of the circuit and as a result damaged his race. At the same time, Norris completed a number of extremely fast laps in clear air prior to his second stop and overtook his team-mate in the strategy race.
Piastri’s chance of making a comeback then completely vanished after an apparent gearbox failure caused him to retire when 15 laps were left, this prompting the introduction of the Virtual Safety Car.
The VSC altered the positioning behind Norris, since Verstappen and Antonelli had stayed out after having changed their tyres in order to take up the positions of second and third respectively.
At the beginning it seemed that Lewis Hamilton was going to finish on the podium because of Ferrari’s aggressive three-stop strategy, but the seven-time world champion was put behind both Antonelli and his team-mate Charles Leclerc due to a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Hamilton ultimately came in fifth, Leclerc securing fourth place.
Isack Hadjar of Red Bull managed to keep up his impressive form by finishing in sixth position, whereas George Russell, after a poor starting phase – having been dropped from the front rows to 19th place due to the anti-stall system—ended the race in seventh for Mercedes.
Racing Bulls achieved another double points result when Liam Lawson finished in eighth place and Arvid Lindblad secured the last point by coming in at 10th, Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg placing ninth and thus separating the two of them. Gabriel Bortoleto, Hulkenberg’s teammate, just missed out on points by finishing in 11th.
Aston Martin had one of its best weekends of the season, Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso coming in 13th and 14th place respectively in the team’s improved cars, with Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto finishing on either side of the pair for Alpine.
Piastri and the Cadillacs – Valtteri Bottas, who retired due to overheating brakes, and Sergio Perez, who was prevented from finishing because of a front-left problem – also failed to complete the race.
This win was Norris’ first victory at a Grand Prix in 2026 and marked McLaren’s first win of the season, giving the currently reigning constructors’ champions a much-needed boost following the dramatic events at the Hungaroring.
–IANS
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