Hungarian GP result and report as Lewis Hamilton penalised | F1 | Sport

Lando Norris finally secured his first Grand Prix victory as the defending Formula 1 world champion with an eventful drive from pole at the Hungaroring. It secured three wins in as many years for McLaren at this circuit, though their bid for another one-two finish here fell apart when Oscar Piastri pulled over in the latter stages with a broken gearbox.

Lewis Hamilton was expected to be a major threat but it never quite happened for the Ferrari man whose podium dream was killed off in the latter stages by a pit lane speeding penalty. That left Kimi Antonelli free to complete his recovery to third while Max Verstappen was second despite hating every second of driving his Red Bull.

Qualifying positions went largely out of the window on the opening lap: Pole-sitter Norris was overtaken by Piastri, Charles Leclerc slipped from second to fifth behind his team-mate Hamilton and both those Ferraris ended up falling behind Verstappen. But the biggest loser was George Russell whose Mercedes went into anti-stall and bogged down on the grid, dropping him more than a dozen places down from his starting position of sixth and leaving him with an enormous mountain to climb.

He was back up to 12th by lap 10 but already 17 seconds behind team-mate Antonelli having lost time while fighting through other, slower cars. But neither Mercedes looked sparkling at the Hungaroring and the championship leader was stuck in sixth, having been dropped by the Ferraris ahead who in turn were making a meal out of getting past Verstappen.

Ferrari pulled the trigger on lap 14, bringing Hamilton into the pit lane in a bid to undercut Verstappen and get past the Red Bull in the pit lane rather than on track. And it worked a treat despite Hamilton spending a few corners stuck behind a slower Racing Bulls, clearing it in time and putting his foot down to ensure Verstappen emerged behind him when the Dutchman stopped a lap later.

But Hamilton looked like he was caught napping the following lap when Verstappen launched an audacious move up the inside from miles back into turn one and got it done spectacularly. “Well, that was quite special,” race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase told the Red Bull racer over the radio, and he was not wrong.

Mercedes extended Antonelli’s first stint, perhaps looking to change to a one-stop strategy, and pulled him in seven laps after Piastri had stopped to give the teenager a decent tyre offset. And he quickly set about closing the gap down, straight away setting the fastest lap of the race on the new hard tyres fitted to his Mercedes.

At the front, Piastri was being helped by team-mate Norris having a messy race. On three separate occasions within the first half of the Grand Prix he ran quite wide to take the pressure off his team-mate, despite seeming to have more pace than the Aussie behind the wheel of the other McLaren.

The key moment came after Piastri pitted, when he clashed with the Williams of Carlos Sainz who got in his way when he should have moved out of it to be lapped. They collided and, while it didn’t seem to do any significant damage to the McLaren, it did cost Piastri a couple of seconds which opened the door for Norris to walk through when he pitted and emerged from the pit lane ahead and in the net lead of the race.

And it all unravelled completely for Piastri a couple of laps later when his gearbox gave up. The virtual safety car came just after Antonelli had pitted and so he stayed out on hards while the Ferrari’s pitted for softs, moving the Italian up to third but putting him firmly in the crosshairs of Hamilton.

But that threat was neutralised by a five-second time penalty given to Hamilton for speeding in the pit lane – his second punishment from the stewards this weekend after a three-place grid drop for impeding Piastri in qualifying. From there, the podium places were set with Norris comfortably winning from Verstappen and Antonelli third.