Lando Norris was victorious at the F1 Hungarian GP. After a difficult start, he was able to execute a one-stop strategy to take the win ahead of teammate and championship rival Oscar Piastri.
Norris’s win today earned McLaren its 200th Formula 1 victory.
The Brit remains 2nd in the championship, but he now sits only 9 points behind Piastri.
A bad start
The Hungarian GP is normally guaranteed to be a two-stop strategy, and that is what McLaren had planned for Lando Norris. But despite Norris getting away well at the lights, he found himself falling back to P5 on Lap 1.
Speaking in the post-race press conference, Norris explained that he was happy with the way he started the race, but felt that he got unlucky with the way things happened. As he was on the inside with nowhere to go, Alonso and Russell swept around the outside to drop him to 5th.
“My start was good. I think Charles’ was pretty good as well. Oscar then came over to the left, and I was kind of just hoping both were going to be on the right.
“I got a bit of slipstream on Oscar, I had to pull out to the right, but Oscar could stay in the slipstream of Charles, which then gave him a bit more speed again.
“At this point, it was hard to back out and go to the left because I would have had to brake a bit. I feel like I was unlucky with how things panned out.
“I think it was just a worst-case scenario. But my start was good, and I have nothing to really complain about.”
Good strategy calls
As the race unfolded, it looked like Lando Norris would not be finishing on the podium, or at best P3 as Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri gapped George Russell. Some brave strategic calls needed to be made.
McLaren decided to employ a one-stop strategy for car #4. He would keep his medium tyres on for 31 laps. After a very quick pit stop from the McLaren crew, he would finish the rest of the race on hard tyres.
Despite the brave decision, Norris revealed that he didn’t have much faith that it would lead to a victory.
“After the first lap, it was kind of our only option to get back into things.
“I didn’t think it would probably get us the win. I thought maybe it would get us at least into second. Our pace was good, even in the first stint behind George. I couldn’t get past, but the pace was strong.
“It’s always a bit of a gamble, these kinds of things. But it also requires no mistakes, good laps, and good strategy. And that’s what we had today. So I’m happy.”
Fighting to the end
Despite having one less pit stop than his close competition, Lando Norris was not uncontested for the win thanks to the high tyre deg in Hungary.
At the end of the race, Oscar Piastri came very close to taking the victory from him. He finished just 0.698 seconds behind Norris on much fresher rubber.
The Brit’s ninth career victory was hard fought. He detailed how difficult it was to manage his tyres and defend the lead.
“I made the mediums last until, like, what lap 32. So it wasn’t a terrible thought that I could make the hards last until the end. I just knew I’d have to push flat out for basically every lap. That’s when it gets a little tricky.
“The tyres get hot. It’s easy to make mistakes. The last few laps the rubber is probably pretty low. So it is easy to lock a tyre.
“I didn’t have a lot of hope that I’d still be in a fight with Oscar until the very end, but it turned out to be. So it was even better.
“It was tough. The final stint with Oscar catching, I was pushing flat out.”
