Lando Norris wins F1 Hungarian GP for first victory of season as Piastri retires | Formula One 2026

Lando Norris finally had reason to celebrate after a testing opening to the season, as McLaren’s defending Formula One world champion took his first win of the year at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

However, while the victory was thoroughly deserved in an incident-packed race, there was an all too familiar feel to the bigger picture as Kimi Antonelli emerged from a weekend that might have been considered damage limitation for the Mercedes driver having once more extended his advantage at the top of the drivers’ championship.

Norris was implacable with an assured drive from pole at the Hungaroring, achieving McLaren’s record 14th win at the circuit. He maintained his cool having lost the lead to his teammate, Oscar Piastri, in the second corner and then showed relentless pace in going on to retake it through the pit stops. The Australian was unlucky and was left fuming that he had been blocked and struck while trying to lap the backmarker Carlos Sainz in a Williams at a crucial point.

Ultimately Piastri had to retire with a gearbox problem but by then Norris had the race by the scruff of the neck and, in clean air out front, had powered into a commanding lead. By the flag he led Max Verstappen by 15 seconds, as the upgrades McLaren brought to Hungary proved to be working to great effect, especially in the British driver’s hands.

Behind him, Antonelli again put the squeeze on his title rivals by returning big points from an unlikely position. The Italian started from seventh, after a three-place grid penalty, but put in a very strong comeback drive to take third place. Moreover, Antonelli’s Mercedes teammate George Russell was left once more to curse a run of ill-fortune that haunts him as a blight he seems unable to shrug off.

Russell’s car went into anti-stall on the grid, dropping him to 20th, a mechanical problem that led Toto Wolff, the team principal, to say Mercedes had to stop making mistakes. As Russell had applied a little throttle on the grid the power had surged, so he backed off it and the anti-stall was activated. He drove hard to come back to seventh but has dropped even more points to the Italian as the sport goes into its summer break, with Antonelli now leading Lewis Hamilton by 50 points and Russell by 59.

Like Russell, Piastri can consider himself to be on the very unlucky side of the ledger. He had been leading but was impeded and struck by Sainz as he tried to lap the Spaniard. Piastri was very nearly knocked off the track but just held control to race on.

“Is he fucking stupid or what? Get out of the fucking way, you idiot. Oh my God,” a furious Piastri told his team. Blue flag markers were being shown and Williams had told Sainz, who was at fault having not spotted Piastri and simply turned into the McLaren. He was penalised with a five-second penalty.

It certainly cost Piastri the lead but that was perhaps moot, as such had been Norris’s pace in clean air after the Australian’s early pit stop set him free that the world champion would probably have taken to the front anyway. But that would have been of scant consolation to Piastri, who had questioned the team’s strategy as well.

There was frustration to for Hamilton, whose Ferrari team ordered him to take a late third pit stop under a virtual safety car, costing him track position to Verstappen and Antonelli. He could not make up those places even on fresher rubber, which Hamilton felt had been the wrong call, with which it was hard to argue given how hard passing was in Hungary.

He crossed the line in fourth but dropped behind his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc because of a five-second penalty for pitlane speeding. It was a shame as Hamilton had battled hard throughout, including a thrilling to and fro with Verstappen in which the Dutchman pulled off a bravura overtake diving up the inside at turn one which was worthy of the price of admission alone.

Yet the afternoon had really belonged to Norris and there was a palpable sense of relief and pleasure that he finally had the monkey off his back this season and that McLaren might yet, whisper it, be players in this title fight.

They have a long way to go, not least because Antonelli proved again that he is as indomitable in adversity as any veteran, but Norris will still believe this is far from over.

Earlier, F1 confirmed the addition of a race at the Sepang circuit in Malaysia, which will take place on 4 October between the rounds in Baku and Singapore. The meeting, which is to replace the cancelled Bahrain GP, is to be branded as the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, with the Gulf state understood to be meeting much of the costs of hosting the race on the circuit near Kuala Lumpur.

The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, also cancelled due to the war in the Middle East, will not be replaced.

Sepang last held an F1 meeting in 2017, which was won by Verstappen, and the addition brings the calendar back to 23 races, if the two meetings which close the season in Qatar and Abu Dhabi are able to take place. F1 is understood to be considering adding a race at Imola as the season finale if they are called off.