"Happy to see the no. 1 again": Norris ends the wait at a chaotic Hungarian Grand Prix

Credit: Formula One

Lando Norris has finally broken his 2026 duck, and he picked a fitting place to do it. After snatching pole from Lewis Hamilton by just 0.012 seconds on Saturday, the reigning champion turned that lap into his 12th career victory on Sunday, a second straight win at the Hungaroring that came by way of a scrappy start, a mid-race scare, and no small amount of misfortune for the man chasing him home.

It very nearly didn't happen at all. Norris got the launch off pole, but the car snapped away from him almost immediately. "I don't know what happened, to be honest. I just kept losing the rear. I had three or four big snaps. It felt horrible," he said. "Oscar did a good job to get the cutback and get past. I think I was just a bit wide, in the dirt, and game over for the first lap."

Teammate Oscar Piastri didn't need a second invitation, cutting back underneath into Turn 2 and taking the lead before the opening lap was even done. Andrea Stella, watching from the pit wall, was unbothered by the swap. "It was great to see Lando and Oscar fighting at the start and being fair," the team principal said. "How the race unfolded meant with Oscar we covered off Hamilton, and Lando in the lead had the pace and took advantage."

What followed was some of the best racing Norris says he has ever driven, even from behind. "Man, I was pushing like hell to try and force him into a mistake or something," he said. "My pace today was probably some of the best pace I've ever had. The car was beautiful to drive and I felt very confident." That pace became McLaren's weapon of choice. Norris later revealed just how close the team came to playing it more aggressively: with Verstappen three or four seconds back and still a threat, and nothing but clean air ahead of Piastri, he wanted to box early and undercut his own teammate. "

My pace would have been so good, I could have pulled away a whole pit-stop window on him and boxed again if I needed to," he explained. "We were on the fine line between boxing too early and harming both of our races." Papaya rules held, and instead it was circumstance that did the job: Piastri lost time in traffic dealing with Carlos Sainz's Williams, and the gap that opened let Norris extend his own stint. "I could always extend the stints and have fresher tyres than anyone else in the race," he said.

Any hope of the perfect afternoon for McLaren ended on Lap 56, when Piastri's car stopped at Turn 3 with a gearbox failure, triggering a Virtual Safety Car and ending a weekend that had promised far more for the Australian. "It was unfortunate for him and unlucky, because I think we could have had a one-two," Norris said.

Stella didn't dodge the point either. "Let's start from the sweet side, great to see the car being fast enough for a pole and a victory," he said. "Lando was in position to squeeze every millisecond from the car. Today, the pace was even more encouraging, great news there. But a lot of work to do with reliability."

Norris had no such complications of his own. He brought the car home 15.080 seconds clear of a superb Max Verstappen, with Kimi Antonelli completing the podium after recovering from a grid penalty. Hamilton crossed the line fourth on the road but a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane dropped him back behind Charles Leclerc, sealing a bruising weekend for Ferrari despite looking like the pace-setters for much of it.

Antonelli's presence up front was not lost on Norris heading into the summer break. "The Ferraris are quick. Kimi is the one who is always there every single session. He's doing a good job," he said. "If we want to come back, we need a lot more of these and we need to keep putting pressure on our competition."

For a driver who had gone without a full grand prix win since Brazil last season, the relief was plain. "I'm just happy to be back and see the number one again," Norris said, before crediting the run of upgrades that brought McLaren back to the front.

"We know this track is a good one for us, probably one of my best-suited of the year. This is maybe as good as it can look for now, but I certainly believe we can still win races. I owe the team a lot. They've done an amazing job to even get back to winning races at this point, so I'm proud."

It was a weekend that handed McLaren both the best and worst of what 2026 has offered them so far: a win that ends the drought, and a reliability failure that cost them a likely one-two. Stella summed it up in three words. "That is racing."