Lando Norris held on from a late siege from Oscar Piastri to win the Hungarian Grand Prix, having gambled on a one-stop strategy and hunkered down in the final 10 laps to close in on his team-mate’s Formula 1 championship lead.
The Briton soaked up a barrage of moves from Piastri late in the race at Turn 1, one culminating in a lock-up for the championship leader, but held on to convert a somewhat risky strategy – one arguably made possible by a difficult opening stint.
Piastri had run to a two-stop strategy in an effort to beat polesitter Charles Leclerc, who preserved the lead off the line and maintained it through the opening stint of the race. He’d also been running to a two-stopper, with the rear-limited nature of the circuit expected to impose a heavy load on the tyres.
By comparison, Norris got a poor start to the race; although the first phase of his getaway allowed him to put team-mate Piastri under scrutiny, he was boxed in at the opening braking zone – thus, both George Russell and Fernando Alonso used the open outside line to gather more momentum and clear Norris into Turn 1.
Norris passed Alonso two laps later, but struggled to break down Russell; having been on for third at best on the same two-stop strategy, Norris extended his stint and took the one-stop gamble offered to him, pitting at the end of lap 31 – with the expectation that those ahead would need to pit again.
This duly proved to be the case, as Leclerc made a second visit to the pitlane on lap 40 for another set of hards, prompting McLaren to attempt to extend for more offset with Piastri’s tyres. Thus, Piastri stopped five laps later, giving the Australian the opportunity to push the Ferrari driver.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
Photo by: Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images
But Leclerc was struggling at this stage; a race-long argument with his team over pre-race procedures eventually boiled down to the Monegasque irately dressing his team down for “losing competitiveness” through the stint. Piastri passed him for second on lap 51, and began his own charge towards Norris.
Over the next 10 laps, Piastri scythed away at Norris’ lead; the two were separated by almost nine seconds when Piastri cleared Leclerc, but this quickly fell to set up a late battle between the pair.
And, with five laps to go, Piastri was within DRS range, having caught up amid the late-race traffic, and filled his team-mate’s mirrors. He got close at the start of the 68th lap, and then went for a dive on the next tour – but locked up and had to go slightly wide into the opening corner.
Without enough momentum in the final lap, Piastri was conciliatory in defeat as Norris swept across the line with a scant 0.698s gap.
More to follow…
Hungarian Grand Prix results
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