BUDAPEST: Lando Norris held off McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri to win the Hungarian Grand Prix on a one-stop strategy and slash the Australian’s Formula One lead to nine points going into the August break.
Norris completed 39 of the 70 laps on a single set of hard tires while Piastri stopped twice and closed a 12-second gap to just 0.6 at the finish, with a nail-biting chase to the chequered flag and a near-collision.
George Russell took a distant third, 20 seconds down the road, to complete the Hungaroring podium for Mercedes and take his fifth podium of the season.
“I’m dead. I’m dead. It was tough,” gasped Norris, who started in third place — with Piastri second — and then went down to fifth after being squeezed at the start.
“We weren’t really planning on the one-stop but after the first lap it was kind of our only option to get back into things.
“I didn’t think it would get us the win, I thought it would get us maybe into second.”
The win was Norris’s fifth of the season, and third in the last four, to Piastri’s six. It was also McLaren’s seventh one-two in 14 races.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was a frustrated fourth, after starting on pole position but losing out with a two-stop strategy and a five-second penalty for erratic driving as Russell challenged.
Fernando Alonso finished fifth for Aston Martin, ahead of Sauber’s sixth-placed Brazilian rookie Gabriel Bortoleto.
Lance Stroll was seventh for Aston Martin ahead of Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson, with Red Bull’s reigning champion Max Verstappen and Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli completing the top 10 scoring positions.
Seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton, an eight-times winner in Hungary, started in 12th place for Ferrari and finished there.
The Briton was lapped by the leaders six laps from the chequered flag.
