For the first time since the 2025 São Paulo GP last year, F1 World Champion Lando Norris was victorious on a Sunday as he ultimately dominated the 2026 Hungarian race.
Having made a very good start to keep P1 into the first corner, he got a little bit deep into turn 2. While in previous years that line was also a common one, there was a lot of dust and a lack of grip in 2026. The Brit was sliding around as he tried to apply the power and lost the lead to teammate Oscar Piastri.
From there, he stayed within or at a second to the Australian, aside from a couple of laps in the medium stint and when he ran wide at turn 4 on lap 29. A gap of 1.9s was quickly reduced to under a second once again.
With Oscar Piastri boxing at the end of lap 33 to cover off Lewis Hamilton, Lando Norris extended a further six tours into the 2026 F1 Hungarian GP. Once he got into clean air, his lap times on old tyres were mega. He did 1:24s every single lap, somewhere between 0.7s to over a second compared to when he was stuck behind car #81.
Helped also by the incident between Carlos Sainz and Oscar Piastri, the defending F1 World Champion rejoined in the net lead on lap 40. From there, he quickly pulled out a 10s lead and drove off into the distance to win. He could even pit under the VSC following the retirement of his teammate to fit softs.
Lando Norris on his delight with the pace of his MCL40 at 2026 F1 Hungarian GP
Speaking in the post-race press conference, the 26-year-old discussed the advantage he felt he had on his Australian stablemate throughout the race and how the car felt on race day.
“What pleases me the most? Just the fact we were so quick, the fact the car was, of course, very strong today.
“Yeah, I was just very happy with a lot of things. I mean, the car was still horrible to drive at times, but quick, and I’d rather have a horrible but quick car than anything else.
“So yeah, just the pace. The pace I had the whole race, even behind Oscar at the beginning. Of course, it wasn’t my finest Turn 2, but after that, seeing what my pace was like and I was just better in every sense, in terms of degradation and pace. I was convinced I could still win the race, even after that, whether I would box or force him to box and I would go long, get fresh tyres and come back through.
“I was convinced I could win the race today, and we did. Of course, it was unfortunate for him and unlucky, because I think we could have had a one-two.
“But otherwise, just my pace. My pace to stay so close to him for so long. We were just on another level today, and I felt in a very good flow of things. When the car’s good and when I’m in a good flow, there’s no stopping [me].”
Norris on pit strategy vs McLaren teammate Piastri
At one point in the second stint, the driver of car #1 asked for an undercut even though he was in P2. He then said he could pull a 10-second gap even on old tyres, such was the pace he felt he had in hand on the Australian.
At that point, Max Verstappen was slowly coming back at them as car #81 struggled for pace on the hard tyres. It looked like an undercut opportunity could present itself had he pitted. Instead, Red Bull would go on long as well.
Lando Norris was asked about it, once again mentioning his searing pace, as well as just wanting to make sure McLaren won the race when they had a golden opportunity on Sunday.
“I mean I just want to win the race.
“There’s certain rules we have as a team and we can’t harm each other’s race by being overly aggressive and wanting to win, but I want to win and I certainly had much, much better pace than him, we had a much better chance of winning the race let’s say.”
The undercut concerns from Verstappen
“When I was stuck behind Oscar, Max was three, four seconds behind and at that point he’s still a threat, ahead there’s no threat and we have a lot more of a guarantee that we’ll win as a team anyway.
“I wanted to box and undercut because my pace would have been so good, I could have pulled away a whole pit stop window I think on him and box again if I needed to, or I’d get him to box early.
“I think we’re on the fine line between, yeah, boxing too early and harming both of our races, so that was just the best interests for the team, which they rightly have to say back against me, but I want to do whatever I can to try and win a race of course.”
Lando Norris on unexpected win after Friday practice struggles at 2026 F1 Hungarian GP
In opening practice on Friday, the defending World Champion could only manage P11. While he never got a proper run in on the softs, McLaren looked a good step behind Ferrari. FP2 seemed to have confirmed that as he was P3 but half a second away from Lewis Hamilton.
However, the wind direction changing on Saturday and fundamentally good car pace turned it around. Lando Norris was fastest in FP3, eventually taking pole by 0.012s in Q3.
In the race, he was even more dominant, with the 12-time race winner holding a significant pace advantage over everyone.
“No, I don’t think so, especially after FP1, I didn’t.
“Actually, Andrea wanted to make a bet with me because I was pretty disappointed with the pace and how the car was handling in FP1. It got a little bit better in FP2, but still, the Ferraris were just on another level, and I really didn’t expect to get as close as we did in qualifying.
“But the wind changed from Friday to Saturday, and Saturday’s wind really suited our car a lot more. We had a lot more confidence in driving the car, so I could push more.
“Then I certainly felt like I could be on pole yesterday, and I felt like I could win the race today. I think today the race pace was much better than I was expecting. The degradation was much better than I was expecting too.”
Delighted with his personal performance and driving gains
Even though he dug in and found a way to win the F1 World Championship last year, Lando Norris struggled with his McLaren package for a good chunk of 2025.
He explained how hard work and becoming more versatile with his driving has allowed him to adapt and improve behind an F1 car this year.
“But it was probably one of my best performances personally, in terms of driving the car. The fact I could keep up with Oscar on this kind of track, where it’s impossible to follow and impossible to overtake, I was within eight tenths or something for, I don’t know, almost 40 laps. The fact I could do this is what gave me confidence that I’d win the race no matter what, whether he boxed early or late or whatever.
“The pace advantage I had was huge today. But I don’t know why. The cars are identical, and I’ve just been feeling very strong lately.
“I’ve worked on many areas from last year. I feel much more confident lately with how to extract performance, and I’ve worked a lot with my engineers to understand this car because it’s certainly not an easy car to understand and figure out how to drive on the limit consistently.
“So, why? Just hard work. Hard work from my engineers and from myself to improve me as a driver and improve my driving. That is the answer.”
