By Alan Baldwin
BUDAPEST (Reuters) -Lando Norris held off McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri to win the Hungarian Grand Prix on a one-stop strategy and slash the Australian’s Formula One lead to nine points going into the August break.
Norris completed 39 of the 70 laps on a single set of hard tyres while Piastri stopped twice and closed a 12-second gap to just 0.6 at the finish, with a nail-biting chase to the chequered flag and a near-collision on the penultimate lap.
George Russell was a distant third, 20 seconds down the road, to complete Sunday’s Hungaroring podium for Mercedes.
“I’m dead. I’m dead. It was tough,” gasped Norris, who started in third place — with Piastri second — and then dropped to fifth after being squeezed at the start.
“We weren’t really planning on the one-stop but after the first lap it was kind of our only option to get back into things.
“I didn’t think it would get us the win, I thought it would get us maybe into second.”
The win was Norris’s fifth of the season, and third in the last four, as well as a career ninth and McLaren’s seventh one-two in 14 races.
LECLERC FRUSTRATED
“Going into the race we thought a two-stop was the best thing to do, and in clean air potentially it still was,” said Piastri, who has won six times this year.
“Having a two-stop race in clean air versus dirty air is a different story. It’s very easy now to say a one-stop was the way to go but one second different and the answer would be very different.”
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was a frustrated fourth, after starting on an unexpected pole position but losing out massively on the final stint of a two-stop strategy.
The Monegasque, who looked in command for 40 laps until his second stop allowed Piastri to pass, was also handed a meaningless five-second penalty for erratic driving in defending against Russell.
“It was a problem on the chassis. There was an issue on that side so we will look into it for it to not happen again,” said Leclerc.
Fernando Alonso finished fifth in Aston Martin’s best result yet this year, and ahead of Sauber’s sixth-placed Brazilian rookie Gabriel Bortoleto — a driver the double world champion manages.
That was also Bortoleto’s best result so far and Sauber’s sixth successive scoring race.
Lance Stroll was seventh for Aston Martin, who moved up to sixth overall in the constructors’ standings and one point ahead of Sauber.
Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson was eighth, with Red Bull’s reigning champion Max Verstappen ninth and Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli completing the top 10 to end a scoring drought.
McLaren’s lead in the constructors’ championship grew to a mighty 299 points over closest rivals Ferrari with 10 races remaining.
HAMILTON TWELFTH
Verstappen remained third overall but 97 points adrift of Piastri, with Russell only 15 behind.
Norris started quickly but was boxed in as Alonso and Russell went past and Piastri chased Leclerc. The Briton recovered fourth place from Alonso on lap three but needed something more.
Piastri pitted on lap 18, with Leclerc coming in a lap later and staying ahead. At that point Norris was offered the chance of a one-stopper, which he accepted as his best chance of beating his teammate.
Norris pitted on lap 31, reducing the gap to the point where he led after rivals made their second stops. Piastri had the last 14 laps on fresher tyres but could not find a way past.
Seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton, an eight-times winner in Hungary, started in 12th place for Ferrari and finished there.
The Briton, who had told reporters after qualifying that he was ‘useless’ and needed replacing, was lapped by the leaders six laps from the chequered flag and was also forced off track by Verstappen.
Hamilton was terse post-race, indicating little had changed from Saturday.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin; Editing by Toby Chopra, Clare Fallon and Pritha Sarkar)
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