Lando Norris made it three wins from his last four races on Sunday with a hard-fought victory in the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Despite a disastrous start which saw him slip from third to fifth in the opening seconds, the McLaren driver benefited from an improvised strategy to pit just once and managed to hold on to the lead despite a late challenge from teammate Oscar Piastri.
The Australian driver started and finished in second, meaning he is now just nine points ahead of Norris in the drivers’ world championship.
“That was tough, we weren’t really planning on the one stop at the beginning but after the first lap that was our only option to get back into things,” Norris told broadcaster Sky Sports afterward.
“The final stint with Oscar catching, I was pushing flat out, it’s rewarding even more because of that, the perfect result today.”
Charles Leclerc began in pole position courtesy of a brilliant final lap in qualifying, but endured a difficult race and has now won just one of the last 16 races in which he has started at the front of the grid.
He finished in fourth after being overtaken late on by George Russell, who claimed his first podium finish since he won the Canadian Grand Prix in June.
For the first half of the race, Leclerc looked in total control. But during lap 29, cracks began to show as the Monégasque driver signaled to his team that something they had discussed before the race was affecting his car. He told broadcaster Sky Sports afterward that there had been an issue with the car’s chassis.
By the time he pitted on lap 40, Leclerc came out behind Norris and could not challenge the English driver.
Suddenly, it was Piastri who looked most likely to catch Norris, especially after lap 51 when – on fresher tires – the Australian caught Leclerc and breezed past him at the first opportunity.
“This is so incredibly frustrating. We’ve lost all competitiveness,” said Leclerc on the team radio. “Now it’s just undriveable, undriveable. It’s a miracle if we finish on the podium.”
With just under 20 laps remaining, Piastri used his better tires to make up the 8.5-second gap on Norris, but could not quite pass him despite a thrilling attempt at an overtake on turn one with two laps to go.
A seventh McLaren one-two of the season ensured a 200th grand prix victory for the team. No team has more than the 13 victories that McLaren has managed at Hungaroring.
“I pushed as hard as I could,” Piastri told broadcaster Sky Sports afterward. “After I saw Lando go for a one (stop), I knew I was going to have to overtake on track which is much easier said than done here.
“It was a gamble either way. Today, unfortunately, we were just on the wrong side of it.”
Elsewhere, Fernando Alonso finished in fifth, one place ahead of Gabriel Bortoleto, who achieved the best finish of his rookie season.
Max Verstappen, who was racing for Red Bull for the 200th time and confirmed this week that he was staying with the team, finished in ninth.
Lewis Hamilton’s disappointing weekend did not see any improvement. A day after he called himself “useless” and suggested Ferrari should drop him, the British driver, who has eight wins on this track, finished in 12th.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
