Lando Norris cashed in on Oscar Piastri’s bizarre collision with a back-marker to win the Hungarian Grand Prix – as Lewis Hamilton lost further ground to Kimi Antonelli in his bid for a record eighth world championship.
Norris surrendered the lead to Piastri following a sloppy start from pole position, but he took advantage of his McLaren team-mate tangling with Carlos Sainz – as he attempted to put a lap on the Williams driver midway through the race – to land the first victory of his title defence.
Piastri ran off the road after his front-right tyre made contact with the rear-left of Sainz’s Williams, losing him up to two seconds.
Norris immediately stopped for tyres and emerged in the net lead. Norris then passed Antonelli on lap 46 before cantering to the chequered flag.
Max Verstappen finished second, with Antonelli a place back in third, allowing the Italian teenager to increase his title advantage over Hamilton from 45 points to 50.
Hamilton, who will surely be left questioning Ferrari’s strategy, after he stopped for tyres one more time than Verstappen and championship rival Antonelli, finished fourth but a five-second penalty for pit-lane speeding demoted him to fifth behind team-mate Charles Leclerc on an afternoon which promised so much more.
George Russell recovered from a nightmare start to finish seventh, but he is now 59 points off the championship pace.
Norris excelled off the line and kept the chasing pack behind at the opening corner only to carry too much speed into the next bend, running wide and allowing Piastri to sneak through.
Leclerc, who started between the McLaren drivers, slipped back from second to fifth with Verstappen and Hamilton moving up to third and fourth respectively.
Hamilton, on the speediest soft tyre compound, set about harassing Verstappen with the Red Bull driver having to defend for his life. Hamilton’s right-front tyre slapped Verstappen’s rear-left through the third bend but both drivers escaped without damage.
For Russell, it was another chapter in his bad-luck story. His new Mercedes engine went into anti-stall as the lights went out, leaving him 19th at the end of lap one. Russell was up to 12th by the start of the 10th lap, and then ninth after his first pit stop.
“Max is really slow,” bemoaned Hamilton, unable to find a way past Verstappen. Hamilton attempted the undercut by stopping one lap before Verstappen, and it worked. However, Verstappen caught Hamilton off-guard to snatch the place back at the first corner – a turn renamed after Verstappen’s father-in-law, Nelson Piquet. A major blow for Hamilton having initially made the strategy work.
Norris was hot in his pursuit of Piastri and challenged McLaren to order the Australian out of his way. Piastri gave up the lead on lap 32 when he came in for his pit-stop, and six laps later his afternoon bizarrely unravelled. Sainz was preoccupied in his duel with Alonso for 15th and ignored the blue flags to ram a mystified Piastri off the road.
“Get out of the f****** way you idiot, oh my God,” yelled Piastri. The Australian could not believe what had unfolded in front of him but for Norris it was the ideal opportunity to snatch the lead. He did not hesitate to change tyres and rejoined ahead of Piastri.
“Oscar, that’s Sainz that cost us that,” said Tom Stallard, Piastri’s race engineer. “Oh mate, just don’t even f****** talk to me,” he replied.
It would get worse for Piastri when his gearbox expired with 14 laps remaining. A Virtual Safety Car was deployed and Norris was able to dive in for a third pit-stop and retain the lead.
Hamilton pitted for second – presumably Ferrari fearing his rubber would not last to the end – but came out behind Verstappen and alongside Antonelli. Hamilton cleared Antonelli but was then told to give the position back with the Mercedes adjudged to have been ahead.
Hamilton was then handed a late five-second penalty for speeding in the pit-lane – in his haste to emerge from his third stop ahead of Antonelli – and he crossed the line only 4.3 sec ahead of Leclerc to lose fourth place. “Handing out penalties like crazy,” said Hamilton on the radio, the 41-year-old’s fourth sanction by the stewards in three rounds.
Hamilton will have hoped to slash Antonelli’s championship advantage, but he will head into the summer break with a greater deficit to turn around when the season resumes in the Netherlands on 23 August – the first of a scheduled 12 rounds still remaining.
PA
