British McLaren driver claimed his first win as reigning world champion, ahead of Verstappen and Antonelli, after a dramatic race in which teammate Piastri retired due to a gearbox failure.
Lando Norris won the 2026 Hungarian Grand Prix, ending McLaren's winless streak this season by beating Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli. Norris finished the race with a time of 1:39:56.180, 15.080 seconds ahead of Verstappen and 18.728 seconds ahead of Antonelli. It was a particularly sweet victory for the reigning world champion, who said after the race that he had "some of the best pace I've ever had" at the Hungaroring.
Norris started from pole position, which he secured in qualifying by a mere 0.012 seconds ahead of Hamilton, but lost the lead on the first lap. He went wide at the exit of Turn 2, and teammate Oscar Piastri seized the opportunity to overtake. "I didn't know what happened, honestly. I just kept losing the rear end. I had three or four big slides. It felt awful and Oscar obviously did a good job of overtaking and getting back ahead. I think I was just a bit too wide in the dust," Norris told Formula 1.
Norris then spent the first half of the race trapped behind his teammate, constantly pressuring McLaren's engineering team to let him into clean air. "I'm way faster," Norris argued on the radio, as McLaren balanced team tactics and individual interests.
The turning point came mid-race when Piastri, immediately after his second pit stop, collided with Williams' Carlos Sainz in the first sector while blue flags were active. The contact significantly slowed the Australian, while Norris in clean air was posting significantly faster laps than his teammate on older tires. McLaren then called Piastri in for another pit stop, giving Norris the net lead in the race.
Piastri's misfortune didn't end there: about fifteen laps from the finish, the McLaren driver was hit by a gearbox issue that forced him to retire. The Virtual Safety Car (VSC) deployed due to the stopped car was used by Verstappen and Antonelli, who stayed out on track, while Norris, Hamilton and Leclerc pitted for a third stop.
After the restart, Norris held the lead ahead of Verstappen, while Hamilton was initially third but had to give way to Antonelli because replays showed he had crossed the VSC line on the start-finish straight after Antonelli. Hamilton's day was further complicated by a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane, dropping him to fifth behind Leclerc. Final order: 1. Norris, 2. Verstappen, 3. Antonelli, 4. Leclerc, 5. Hamilton.
Behind the leaders, Isack Hadjar finished sixth in the second Red Bull, while George Russell fought back to seventh after a disastrous start that dropped him to 21st due to an anti-stall system activation. Racing Bulls' Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad, along with Audi's Nico Hulkenberg, rounded out the top ten.
With the win and 25 points, Norris climbed to 128 points in the drivers' standings, just 10 points behind Charles Leclerc who has 138. The lead still belongs to Kimi Antonelli with 219 points, who recorded his ninth podium of the season with this race. In the constructors' standings, Mercedes leads with 379 points ahead of Ferrari (307) and McLaren (220).
"I'd like to believe we can continue at this pace. This track is one of those that suits me best, but I believe we can keep winning," Norris said looking ahead to the rest of the season. The race at the Hungaroring was the 11th on the 2026 calendar, and F1 now enters the summer break. The next race is the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, scheduled for August 21-23, 2026.
