On the opening lap of the Hungarian Grand Prix, Lando Norris fell from third to fifth, being passed by the Mercedes of George Russell and the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso, as pole-sitter Charles Leclerc and Norris's teammate, Oscar Piastri, pulled ahead.
Norris’s mistake on the opening lap ultimately won him the race as McLaren split their strategy, with the only chance of Norris competing for a win coming with a one-stop race, keeping him out of most of the wheel-to-wheel racing action.
Norris, Piastri, and Leclerc were all chasing their ninth career win, with Norris taking the win for his side of the McLaren garage and bringing the English team their 200th win. Norris's win over Piastri in second drops Piastri's points lead to nine points.
"I'm dead, it was tough," Norris told F1TV. "We were not planning on the one-stop at the beginning, but after the first lap, it was kinda our only option to get back into things. The final stint with Oscar catching, I was pushing flat out."
Leclerc was able to hold off Piastri through the first set of pit stops on the two-stop strategy, with Piastri pitting first on lap 19 for the undercut and Leclerc staying ahead after pitting a lap later.
While Norris was running behind Leclerc and Piastri, the championship leader had to choose his priority of racing against Leclerc or Norris. In the end, Piastri extended his middle section to have the freshest hard tires to take the race to his teammate in the closing laps, after Leclerc was pulled to the pits complaining about his tires.
Ultimately, on lap 41, Leclerc and Ferrari took the bait when McLaren set up the pit for Piastri, drawing Leclerc down the pit lane. Piastri and McLaren had decided by this half way point, while just two seconds behind Leclerc, that the race was with their competitor on the other side of the McLaren garage. Piastri would pit on lap 46. Five laps later, Piastri was able to make the run on Leclerc for the lead once his second hard tires were heated underneath him.
When Piastri moved into second ahead of Leclerc, he was nine seconds behind his teammate on 14-lap fresher tires by lap 62, Piastri was within three seconds.
Cutting into the lead by about a third of a second a lap, set Piastri up for his first attempt at a race-winning pass to come with two laps remaining, a lockup kept Norris ahead.
"I think I needed to be a couple of tenths closer, which was going to take a mistake by Lando to achieve that," Piastri told F1TV. "I felt like that was going to be my best chance, you never want to save it for the next lap, which never comes."
As soon as Norris picked the one-stop option, Piastri was forced into his only move being an overtake on a notoriously hard passing track.
"I pushed as hard as I could, I think after I saw Lando going for the one [stop], I knew I was going to have to overtake on the track, which is much easier said than done around here," Piastri said. "Tried a few things, it was a gamble either way, today unfortunately we were on the wrong side of it. The team did a great job, the car really came alive in the second half of the race."
When Leclerc fell to third, his race came undone. George Russell, came out fourth behind the Ferrari after his final pit stop. While trying to defend, Leclerc was desperate and aggressive as Russell radioed that the Ferrari was moving under braking on lap 62. Leclerc pulled the same move on lap 63, but Russell was able to get around the second time.
The Stewards reviewed Leclerc's move and hit him with a five-second penalty. By the end of the race, Leclerc was 15 seconds off the podium but held fourth place with the penalty crossing the finish line 16 seconds ahead of Alonso.
Aston Martin had their best race finish as Alonso took fifth ahead of Sauber's Gabrial Bortoleto and his teammate Lance Stroll. Liam Lawson finished ahead of Max Verstappen in ninth with Kimi Antoneill holding on with hard tires for 48 laps to capture the last point of the Grand Prix, keeping Issac Hadjar and Lewis Hamilton at bay.
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