Lando Norris took pole and the win at the 2026 Hungarian Grand Prix, but Oscar Piastri led most of the race for McLaren before retiring with a gearbox failure 14 laps from the end.
Lando Norris won the 2026 Hungarian Grand Prix on 26 July, and the result flatters him.
Norris took pole at the Hungaroring, which was itself the story of Saturday: it ended a run of ten consecutive pole positions for Mercedes and was the first pole of the season for any other constructor. Then he lost the lead at Turn 2 on the opening lap to his own team-mate.
Oscar Piastri led most of the race. McLaren resisted Norris' requests to be let through, so the two of them ran in that order until Piastri made contact with Carlos Sainz while lapping traffic and then retired with an apparent gearbox problem, 14 laps from the finish. Norris inherited the lead and won by about 15 seconds from Max Verstappen, with Kimi Antonelli third.
The grid had also been reshuffled by the stewards. Lewis Hamilton qualified second for Ferrari and Antonelli fourth for Mercedes, and both took three-place penalties: Hamilton for impeding Piastri, Antonelli for failing to slow sufficiently under yellow flags. That put them fifth and seventh. Antonelli recovered to the podium from seventh.
So two things are true at once. McLaren were the fastest car in Hungary, and they got the win by attrition rather than by beating anyone on track. It was Norris' first victory of the season.
The championship barely moved. Antonelli leads on 219 points, 50 clear of Hamilton on 169, with George Russell third on 160. Mercedes lead the constructors' championship on 379, 72 ahead of Ferrari. Losing the Saturday monopoly matters more than losing this Sunday did.
Correction, 6 September 2026: this page was wrong from 30 July 2026 and has been corrected.