2026 Hungarian Grand Prix Race Review

Linus O'Howell

Jul 26

4 min read

Norris Returns to Winning Ways as Piastri Gets Shafted

For the first time as a World Champion, Lando Norris saw the chequered flag first to take victory for the 2026 Hungarian Grand Prix! A rather annoyed Max Verstappen somehow managed to finish second for Red Bull, whilst Andrea Kimi Antonelli extended his Championship lead by rounding out the Podium!

The Biggest Talking Points

Despite leading down into Turn 1, a mistake at Turn 2 cost Lando Norris the lead, gifting Oscar Piastri first place instead! Charles Leclerc, who started from second, dropped down to 5th, whilst George Russell’s Mercedes went into anti-stall, dropping Russell all the way down to the back of the grid! The Race then started to calm down due to it being very hard to overtake, with Lewis Hamilton very much finding that out behind the Red Bull of Max Verstappen! An early pitstop from Hamilton would allow for the undercut, but his lack of conviction when passing slower cars allowed Verstappen back through with a wonderful overtake into Turn 1! Valtteri Bottas would then pull into the pit lane with his brakes on fire, leading to McLaren having to wait another lap to pit Piastri, with Norris coming out right behind his teammate (and just ahead of Verstappen) as Isack Hadjar was doing a good job of holding up the leaders! Eventually, Hadjar would be out of the way as the McLarens started to stretch their advantage out front once Andrea Kimi Antonelli made his first pit stop! At this point in the Race, Lando felt like he was the much quicker driver out of the two McLarens, a feeling that forced McLaren's hand as Oscar was forced to stop again much earlier than he would’ve wanted to! This royally screwed over the Aussie, who got caught up in a heap of traffic as he made contact with Carlos Sainz’s Williams (who was being lapped)! All of this mess allowed Norris to jump his way into the lead of the Race, a feeling that left Piastri rather peeved off!

With Lando Norris pulling well clear out front, a second pit stop for Andrea Kimi Antonelli dropped him down to P6, albeit with much fresher tyres! The challenge for Kimi would then become easier as a gearbox failure compounded Oscar Piastri’s misery, whilst Ferrari's decision to pit in the subsequent Virtual Safety Car allowed Antonelli to jump his way back into P3! This is when the lapped car chaos returned, with nobody doing a very good job of getting out of the way of the leaders! This rather halted Antonelli’s charge on Max Verstappen, whilst Lewis Hamilton’s day was made worse by another 5-second time penalty, this time for speeding in the pitlane! For some reason, Ferrari didn’t tell Charles Leclerc to slow down at the end of the Grand Prix, meaning Hamilton ultimately dropped behind his teammate following the penalty! Elsewhere, the two Racing Bulls were at it again, with Arvid Lindblad being very aggressive in his defence against Liam Lawson, whilst George Russell was able to recover his way back to P7!

The Standout Drives in the Race

I’ve given out three 10’s for the 2026 Hungarian Grand Prix, and the first one is obviously for Lando Norris! Lando’s pace was absolutely supreme today; he was the fastest man on track, and it’s been a long time coming for him to finally win again! The second driver I’ve given out maximum points to is Liam Lawson, as Liam once again did his thing and finished best of the rest! Brilliant drive! The third and final driver I’ve given a Perfect 10 to is Oscar Piastri, as this feels like another win that Oscar has lost through no fault of his own! I’m not surprised he was so angry (for multiple reasons)! Elsewhere, Max Verstappen did a pretty great job to finish on the Podium for Red Bull, whilst Andrea Kimi Antonelli will always be happy when he extends his Championship lead! There was also a massive celebration to be had for Nico Hulkenberg, who finally scored his first points of the season (and subsequently for Audi), whilst Aston Martin showed a strong amount of improvement to finish 13th and 14th (with Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso respectively)!

Drivers Who Had a Shocker

Whilst I haven’t given out any 1’s for today’s Race, I was honestly very close to! I have no idea what Carlos Sainz was doing; it was like he wasn’t looking in his mirrors at all, and the only reason I haven’t been even harsher with my grade for Carlos is because the FIA confirmed that they had another fault with their system! I also thought Oliver Bearman was pretty poor as he finished last with both a spin and a time penalty to boot! Franco Colapinto also had a bad day; finishing behind both Aston Martins is pretty weak, whilst Alex Albon seemingly had no pace in the other Williams as Cadillac suffered a double DNF! Oh, and Ferrari deserve an honourable mention as nothing went right for Lewis Hamilton today… again!