Racing
© Jonathan Borba
Lando Norris gave McLaren its first victory of the 2026 season at the Hungarian Grand Prix, recovering from an opening-lap mistake and an internal strategy flashpoint with Oscar Piastri to win by 15.080 seconds.
Norris had started from pole but lost the lead almost immediately after running wide at Turn 2 and suffering repeated snaps from the rear of the car. Oscar did a very good job to get back past, he said afterward, admitting he thought “it was over” after the first lap. Instead, he stayed close through the first stint, rarely more than about a second behind, and kept leaning on the pace advantage McLaren had found at the Hungaroring.
The defining tension came in the second pit sequence. Norris asked McLaren to stop him first as he closed on Piastri, convinced he had the speed to take control, but the team refused and brought Piastri in instead to cover Lewis Hamilton. Norris stayed out for six more laps, then stopped and emerged just ahead after Piastri had lost time in contact with lapped Williams driver Carlos Sainz. Sainz was later penalized five seconds for the incident.
From there, the fight that had threatened to become a serious internal dispute quickly swung Norris’ way. Once back in clear air, he broke the race open. “Today I would probably say was up there with one of my best performances in terms of extracting performance out of the car,” Norris said after the race. “My pace today was probably some of the best pace I've ever had. The car was beautiful to drive and I had confidence.”
That pace turned a complicated race into a comfortable one. Norris said he had been able to extend his stints more than he expected before the start, which left him with fresher tires later in the race and reinforced his belief that he could still win even after losing the lead on lap one.
For McLaren, the result was a breakthrough and a frustration at the same time. The team’s major Hungary upgrade package delivered the first win of its season, but a one-two disappeared when Piastri, who had led much of the first half of the race, later retired with a gearbox failure while still in contention for a podium.
Behind Norris, Max Verstappen salvaged second for Red Bull after a soft-tire strategy gamble, finishing 15.080s back, while Kimi Antonelli took third at 18.728s. The Mercedes driver’s podium extended his championship lead to 50 points over Lewis Hamilton and 59 over George Russell, while Norris finally gave McLaren the result its Hungary upgrade was designed to unlock.