Norris Gets '26 Breakthrough In Hungary, Piastri Crashes

Lando Norris celebrates his Hungarian Grand Prix victory on Sunday. (McLaren photo)

By Thomas Hughes, SWN Staff Writer

BUDAPEST, Hungary (July 26, 2026) — The Hungarian Grand Prix is often compared to the streets of Monaco.

Not in its layout — the Hungaroring is a traditional style of racetrack, while Monaco is the original street course — but in its difficulty to overtake. This was true of Sunday’s AWS Hungarian Grand Prix.

At the front, McLaren’s Lando Norris was unimpeded en route to his first victory of the season; he romped to a 15-plus-second victory over Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli.

“Today, when we had a car, I think the words when I said, ‘I think my performance is some of my best,’ today proved exactly that: that I could go out and win very convincingly and be on pole in a good car,” Norris said. “… A lot of small differences add up, and you see the result today.

The weekend, as a whole, was relatively easy for the Briton, save for a Q3 shootout for the pole where Norris emerged just .012 seconds ahead of Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton (though Hamilton was dropped to third after impeding Norris’ McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri.

Hamilton couldn’t convert that qualifying pace into a win, being demoted from fourth on the road after a five-second time penalty for speeding in the pit lane. 

Norris rarely put a foot wrong during the grand prix. Piastri didn’t really, either; his race, however, was undone by factors mostly outside his control.

Piastri — a winner at Hungary two years ago for his first win at the F-1 level — snatched the lead on the opening lap from Norris, who went wide. He qualified fifth but started the race in third due to pre-race penalties for Antonelli and Hamilton.

Once there, Piastri took the lead, holding it after the first barrage of pit stops.

Norris spent much of the middle stint bottled up behind Piastri, repeatedly closing to within the one-second range but unable to find a way through at the notoriously difficult-to-pass Hungaroring.

As McLaren debated strategy, Norris argued he had significantly more pace, setting up the decisive sequence that followed.

The turning point came when Piastri caught Carlos Sainz while lapping traffic. Contact between the pair cost the Australian precious seconds, allowing Norris to exploit his cleaner air and longer middle stint to emerge ahead after his own second stop.

Norris’ pace on aging hard tires allowed him to delay his second stop several laps longer than Piastri. Those extra laps in clear air ultimately flipped the race in his favor.

On lap 46, Norris made his move, snatching the lead from Antonelli. With 15 laps to go in the race, however, Piastri’s race unraveled completely.

The Australian stopped at turn three, warranting a Virtual Safety Car after an gearbox-related engine issue. That enabled Norris, Hamilton and Leclerc to pit, while Red Bull’s Max Verstappen stayed out.

As the race resumed, Norris continued to hold a five-plus-second lead over Verstappen and ultimately won the race by 15.08 seconds for his maiden victory of the 2026 season.

“The car was still horrible to drive at times, but quick —and I’d rather have a horrible but quick car than anything else,” Norris said. “… I was convinced I could win the race today, and we did. Of course, it was unfortunate for [Piastri] and unlucky, because I think we could have had a [1-2] finish. … When the car’s good and when I’m in a good flow, there’s no stopping.”

Red Bull rolled the dice by asking Verstappen to stretch a set of soft tires over the final 30-plus laps. While he never had the pace to challenge Norris after the restart, the strategy comfortably secured second place and another podium finish, vaulting himself up to sixth in the drivers’ title as a result of Piastri’s DNF.

The Dutchman hasn’t won a race in 2026 — Mercedes has won all but three, with Ferrari (two) and McLaren (one) accounting for the others — but Verstappen has still produced several standout drives, emerging with his fourth podium of the season after stellar runs at Canada (third), Austria (second) and Belgium (third).

“Initially, I was like, ‘That’s going to be a long run to the end,’ but we made it work,” Verstappen said. “So, yeah, overall, I still don’t really understand how we are second, but I think as a team, we performed strongly. So, yeah, I see it as a bit of an overperformance compared to what we expected, so I guess that’s, of course, a good thing, considering how everything felt.”

Antonelli, meanwhile, finished third, and though he failed to win, he still increased his title lead — a result of Hamilton finishing fourth and teammate George Russell crossing seventh.

Antonelli (219 points) now has a 50-point lead over Hamilton in the drivers’ title, while Russell is third with a 56-point deficit to his Italian teammate.

“I’m very happy, and it’s the best way to go into the summer break,” Antonelli said. “I think today was big damage limitation, and we’ve got to keep pushing because the second half is going to be hard, but we’ll try our best.”

Russell's seventh-place finish masked one of the stronger recovery drives of the afternoon after anti-stall dropped him to 21st at the start.

The Ferrari pair of Charles Leclerc — Leclerc finished behind Hamilton on the road, but he moved up a spot due to Hamilton’s five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane — and Hamilton finished fourth and fifth, with Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar and Russell behind. Racing Bulls’ Arvid Lindblad (eighth) and Liam Lawson (10th) sandwiched Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg for the final points-paying positions.

F-1 will be off until Aug. 23 when it ventures to Netherlands for the Heineken Dutch Grand Prix. All races for the championship are available for streaming in the United States on Apple TV.

The race will take place at 3 p.m. local time (9 a.m. ET). Verstappen won the first three Dutch Grands Prix after it returned in 2021 for the first time since the 1985 season — though McLaren has won the last two races (Norris in 2024, Piastri in 2025) at Circuit Zandvoort.