Lando Norris scored his first race victory as a Formula 1 world champion, as he won the 2026 Hungarian Grand Prix for McLaren ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.The main part of the race was a battle between Norris and his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri, who took the lead from Norris at Turn 2 when the pole-sitter ran wide. Norris stayed close while the McLaren pair edged away from the battling Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton during the early stages of the 70-lap contest.It was around the second round of pitstops where the race swung back to Norris.He had been insisting he was the quicker McLaren driver when Piastri stopped for a second time on Lap 33, after which Norris stayed out for six more laps.During this phase, Piastri lost critical time lapping traffic and then a chunk of time after Williams driver Carlos Sainz nearly wiped him out exiting Turn 2, seemingly unaware the net race leader was so close.When Norris did stop, he rejoined in the net lead and quickly dropped Piastri to catch Kimi Antonelli, who was running even longer for Mercedes on a off-key weekend for the season’s front-running team.Norris soon shot by Antonelli and raced further clear of Piastri before the second McLaren retired with a suspected gearbox problem on Lap 56.A virtual safety car was activated, during which time Hamilton pitted while Verstappen stayed out and Antonelli closed in — the race neutralization coming just after the world championship leader’s second stop.Antonelli and Hamilton charged over the remaining 10 laps, but Verstappen easily stayed clear in second. Hamilton’s finale was made harder when he was told he had a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane at his VSC stop. This dropped him to fifth in the final order, behind Charles Leclerc in the other Ferrari.In the other Mercedes, George Russell finished seventh after he lost 15 places with a slow start and had to battled back from 21st out of the 22 runners. The races’s other retirements were the two Cadillac drivers, Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas, as they suffered separate mechanical issues.Luke Smith, in Budapest, and Madeline Coleman analyze the action.A deserved win for Norris despite more McLaren Hungary dramaFor the third year in a row here, the battle for victory in Hungary was between the two McLaren drivers. And for the third year in a row, it descended into drama.After the tension over Norris belatedly moving aside for Piastri in 2024, and the split strategies that left Piastri deflated and defeated last year, McLaren again had to deal with some needle between its drivers on Sunday.Norris had been the quicker of the two McLarens across the Hungary weekend, with Piastri not helped by missing first practice and then only getting the team’s updated car parts from third practice onwards.Yet it was Piastri who got into the lead on the opening lap, giving him the chance to dictate the race.Norris first suggested in the opening stint where they both used medium tires that he was faster than Piastri, but couldn’t show it due to the dirty air coming off the sister McLaren causing him to lose downforce and speed.But he kept within a second of the leader after pitting to take hard tires, and began to grow increasingly frustrated on the radio after being informed that Piastri, as the leader, would get priority in the pits for the second stops. “I’m miles faster!” Norris cried at one stage.After Piastri pitted first, Norris had the clean air to prove his point, and duly did so by remaining among the fastest cars on the track despite his worn tires. By staying out longer and creating a tire life delta, he’d plan to carve into the gap to Piastri.Instead it was the incident with Sainz — the backmarker being lapped, who should’ve looked closer in his mirrors at the McLaren bearing down on him — that really ended Piastri’s win hopes.Lando Norris exits the pits to reclaim the lead of the 2026 Hungarian GP. (Peter Fox/Getty Images)He dropped a rare curse word on the radio about Sainz, who was later penalized, and grew more frustrated after seeing Norris pit and emerge just ahead of him (above).