Lando Norris declares ‘there’s no stopping me’ in F1 title warning | F1 | Sport

Lando Norris said he believes he can be unstoppable again this season – if McLaren can maintain their form from the Hungarian Grand Prix. The Brit finally secured his first Sunday victory as defending Formula 1 champion as McLaren got their upgrades to work as planned, having struggled to make as much of an impact with their development this season.

But their Budapest upgrades catapulted them to the very front of the grid on a circuit at which they have performed very well in recent years. While they fell short of a third consecutive one-two finish at the Hungaroring, because Oscar Piastri was forced to pull over with a gearbox failure, they were clearly the most performant team on track.

Norris won by 15 seconds, helped to do so by Piastri being slowed down when trying to lap Carlos Sainz which gave the Brit enough time to overcut his team-mate in the pit lane and emerge in the lead of the race. Though while he conceded that helped him on the way to victory, Norris insisted he was the stronger McLaren driver on the day.

He also suggested a belief that nobody on the grid will be able to get the better of him if McLaren remain as strong at other venues, and he is allowed to build up a head of steam. Norris said: “It wasn’t my finest turn two 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. So, 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 is good and when I’m in a good flow, there’s no stopping [me].”

McLaren’s strength in Hungary may be something of a wake-up call to Mercedes who have been the dominant force on the grid this year. Though team principal Toto Wolff did not seem too concerned about the progress Norris’ team has made, pointing out McLaren’s strong record at the Hungaroring.

The Austrian said: “When you ask the artificial intelligence who are the favourite in Budapest, the artificial intelligence is going to say McLaren. They were the dominant team here in the last few years, I think it was one and two, something like this last year. So, definitely one of the good tracks for them, not very good for us.

“We need to be careful not to swing from everyone is suddenly competitive to a team is suddenly not competitive. I think they’ve definitely done a step, they are in the fight, we haven’t brought an upgrade for some time, and you can see that this is going to be a development fight also going forward.”