Norris holds on to clinch victory in Budapest

Lando Norris holds on to win the Hungarian Grand Prix over championship rival, and teammate Oscar Piastri. As the lights went out for the start of the race, Norris fell from 3rd to 5th behind George Russell and Fernando Alonso but shortly after got by both of them a couple of laps later, as well as Max Verstappen going by Liam Lawson for the 8th position and then Lance Stroll for the 7th postion the next lap.

Further into the race on lap 19, McLaren decide to pit Oscar Piastri for the hard tires, thus having him commit to a two stop strategy. The Ferrari of Charles Leclerc pitted the following lap for the hard tires as well as George Russell.

In addition on lap 28, Lando Norris' race engineer asked him if he could commit to a one stop strategy and go 40 laps on the hard tire, and Norris responded with "yeah, why not". On lap 29, Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton had a very close call with Verstappen going to the inside of Hamilton heading into turn 4 and nearly making contact. Hamilton went off track in order to not collide with Verstappen and ultimately lost the position to Verstappen.

Furthermore, on lap 32, Lando Norris pits for the hard tires and committing to that one stop strategy, going to the end of the race. Later on lap 41, Charles Leclerc makes his 2nd and final stop pitting for the hard tires once again, and on lap 46, Oscar Piastri says on the radio "I'm not even thinking about Leclerc" when his team tells him that Leclerc will be around 4 to 5 seconds ahead of the pit window and shortly after Piastri pits for his second stop.

It wasn't until a couple of laps later, on lap 51 Piastri catches up to Leclerc and goes by him for the second position and sets his objective on catching teammate Lando Norris for the race win. On lap 53 leclerc gets frustrated at his team on the radio saying "This is so incredibly frustrating. We've lost all competitiveness. You just have to listen to me. I would have found a different way of managing those issues. Now, it's just undriveable. undriveable. It's a miracle if we finish on the podium."

Not too later, on lap 61, George Russell goes for a move on Charles Leclerc into turn 1 but Leclerc shuts the door and Russell comes on the radio and says "that's moving under braking, that's clearly not allowed." Russell did manage to get by Leclerc the following lap but the two nearly collided once again in turn 1.

Within the last five laps of the race Piastri eventually caught up to Norris who was on that one stop strategy and on lap 69 with two laps to go Piastri goes for a move into turn 1 but locks up and was not close enough to get by his McLaren teammate for the race win. Norris wins the Hungarian Grand Prix over Oscar Piastri and George Russell who rounds out the podium. The Aston Martin duo of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll got their best result as a team for the first time since Bahrain in 2023 with a result of 5th for Alonso and 7th for Stroll. Sauber rookie Gabriel Bortoleto finishes in 6th scoring his best career finish in Formula 1.

Formula 1 now heads into the summer break after the conclusion of the Hungarian Grand Prix. Action resumes on the 29th of August when Formula 1 heads to Zandvoort in the Netherlands for the Dutch Grand Prix.