Oscar Piastri became the 115th Grand Prix winner in Formula 1 history on Sunday as he took the chequered flag in Hungary for his maiden win in the category and helping McLaren achieve their first 1-2 since Monza 2021. The race saw Piastri pip teammate Norris to the line to become the first driver to be born in the 21st Century to win a F1 race, with Lewis Hamilton taking third place and becoming the first driver in the series’ history to achieve 200 podiums.

Qualifying:

With rain posing a threat to qualifying after three practice sessions in very warm conditions, most teams were eager for their drivers to complete an early flying lap. The rain did fall across the Hungaroring in the lead up to the start of Q1, however, by the time the lights went green the rain had ceased and the soft compound tyres were the choice for the queue of cars heading out as a dry racing line was quickly beginning to form around the once sodden track.

Hamilton logged the best lap time after the first few runs with a 1:17.087, however, the yellow flags were brought out briefly for Logan Sargeant as he ran off track and made contact with the barriers damaging his front wing as a result – this came after he was running in an impressive fifth place.

With just seven minutes left of the session, the red flags halted the action on track as Perez had run over the slippery kerbs, lost control of the rear of the car and ended in the barriers. The Red Bull driver was unhurt and able to exit the car on his own, although it doesn’t bode well for the Mexican driver who is already under-pressure after a series of poor performances over the past couple of race weekends.

During the red-flag period the weather again showed its temperamental nature, becoming heavy just as the session was looking to start again, before quickly improving. This had however left a damp track with just a few minutes left of the session as the likes of Russell – who was at risk in P14 – headed out once again to try to improve their previous lap times. He managed to improve his time to place him higher up in tenth, as the entire grid bar the Alpine pair took to the track to log extra times. 

Ricciardo went faster than the rest in Q1, seeing himself through to the next stage of Qualifying alongside the likes of Stroll, Bottas and Magnussen, meanwhile, Russell’s early outing was detrimental, with the Mercedes driver eventually being pushed down to P17. Perez finished in P16 – as he was unable to rejoin the session due to the damage to his car – with Zhou crossing the line in P18. Alpine’s decision to not send their drivers out again for another flying was deemed detrimental as they were both eliminated with Ocon in P19 and Gasly in P20.

After a dramatic first part to Saturday’s qualifying, the second segment started off quietly in comparison, with Sainz alone out on track to log the first lap. It was Verstappen however, who set the fastest lap as the rest of the field completed their first runs with a 1:15.770, with McLaren’s Piastri a mere 0.015s behind.

With five minutes to go to the end of Q2, Bottas, Sergeant, Albon, Hulkenberg and Ricciardo were all at risk of elimination, with the Australian RB driver not having a lap time set during the opening runs. Tensions were high as a queue had formed in the pit lane ahead of the final few laps, putting drivers at risk of not having enough time to get around the track and cross the line to start their flying lap before the chequered flag was flown.

Mercedes’ Hamilton managed to see himself through to the next session in P10, by just 0.01s over Hulkenberg in P11. Meanwhile, Norris went fastest at the chequered flag and both RB drivers improved on their times, whilst Bottas missed out on progressing alongside Albon, Sergeant and Magnussen.

Reigning World Champion Verstappen was the first driver out on track at the start of the top-10 shootout, putting in an early lap on a set of new soft tyres. Alonso saw himself warned over the radio that there was once again a possibility of rain affecting the session, so there was a visible pressure on the drivers to make their first efforts count in case they were unable to improve by the latter stages of the session.

Norris eventually displaced Verstappen for provisional pole position, with the McLaren going the fastest by three tenths of a second with a lap time of 1:15.227s. Team-mate Piastri moved into third, ahead of Leclerc in fourth and Hamilton in fifth place. With the first set of laps completed, the promised rain had started to fall lightly around the Hungaroring, with the prospect of preventing any dramatic improvements from the drivers.

With a few minutes remaining of the session, the likes of Verstappen and Piastri had already rejoined the track to set a better lap time, with Piastri improving on a time that saw him just 0.022s behind his team-mate, and Verstappen completing a lap to put him into third. However, the session would be neutralised by the red flags as a result of Tsunoda suffering a heavy crash in his RB on the exit of Turn 5. The Japanese driver was able to walk away from the incident that saw the car and its pilot go over the kerbs and momentarily go airborne. 

Several, but not all, drivers had lined up in the pit lane after being told the session would be resumed with just over two minutes left on the clock. Every driver that opted to try to completed a final flying lap – bar Sainz – were able to cross the line before the time ran out, resulting in the Ferrari driver pitting whilst everyone else attempted to improve. Ricciardo was the only driver that was able to improve his time, meaning Norris’ early provisional pole lap time stuck and he took pole position going into Sunday’s race, ahead of team-mate Piastri.

Verstappen managed to hold onto P3 sharing the second row with Sainz in P4, whilst the future Ferrari team-mates of Leclerc and Hamilton would line-up in P5 and P6 respectively. Alonso and Stroll managed a time good enough for P7 and P8 in what seemed a decent day for the Aston Martin team, whilst Ricciardo took P9 ahead of team-mate Tsunoda – who as a result of his crash was unable to rejoin – in P10.

Race:

Oscar Piastri joined 114 other drivers since the start of the Formula 1 World Championship to win a Grand Prix with his maiden win in Hungary this past weekend, after a race full of intra-team drama that saw team-mate Lando Norris responding very late on in the race to an order to give the lead back to the Australian who had previously suffered as a result of the team’s botched pit stop strategy.

There was one alteration to the original starting grid set during qualifying which was confirmed ahead of the race, and this came from Alpine’s Gasly who was set to start from the pit late as a result of changes to the cars make set-tup and power unit changes. 

With the lights out on Sunday’s race, Norris made quick work to launch off the line but was closely followed by Piastri and Verstappen, resulting in the drivers going three-wide into Turn 1. Pistri was the ultimate winner of this battle, with Verstappen seeing himself going wide on the outside before he rejoined the track ahead of Norris. This prompted the Dutchamn to be noted for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, with his race engineer advising him to hand back the position to Norris as a result of the looming threat of a penalty.

By Lap 11, Piastri had continued to grow his lead to three seconds, with the Australian driver reporting to the team that he was feeling comfortable with his tyres despite being told as a early as Lap 2 to try to save them. Behind him McLaren had a comfortable 1-2 positioning with Norris having a gap of over two seconds to Verstappen in third place.

Hamilton was the first of the front-runners to pit for a change of tyres on Lap 17, with the Mercedes driver emerging from the pit-exit with a set of hard tyres in P7, looking to attempt an undercut on Verstappen in their battle for what seemed to be third place at the end of the race.

Around the halfway mark in the race, Norris was now around 1.5 seconds behind Piastri, with commentators questioning if the front-runner was beginning to struggle on his tyres. Norris was allowed to race his team-mate, however was only allowed to until the “mid-forties” of the race. Hamilton was instructed by the team to pit, however the Mercedes did not respond to the call.

On Lap 46, Norris became the first of the top-four to pit on Lap 46, with the McLaren reemerging on used mediums in fourth place. Piastri was told to stay out, with the strategy seeming to be for Norris to try to cover the risk that Hamilton was posing from behind. Two laps passed and race leader Piastri eventually pitted for medium tyres – albeit a slower stop than that of Norris – and returned to the track behind Norris, with McLaren somehow undercutting their own drivers. 

With 20 laps remaning, Piastri was informed that they would swap the positions back to what they were before the pit-stop shenanigans, adding that they wanted to avoid Norris losing too much time, having now been three seconds ahead. Lap 57 came and the McLaren’s were yet to swap back with Norris reminded that he had been asked to allow Piastri to catch-up to him yet the gap now sat at four seconds.

Behind the internally fighting McLaren’s, Verstappen had managed to close the gap to Hamilton, with the Dutchman voicing his frustrations with Hamilton’s defensive moves, before he tried again at Turn 1, however, he locked up and made contact with the Mercedes, resulting in the Red Bull bouncing up into the air and leaving the track, dropping him down to fifth and resulting in an investigation from the stewards. 

Up front the drama looked to have finished as, by Lap 68, Norris had slowed enough to allow team-mate Piastri through to retake first position. The Australian ultimately crossed the line to take his debut Grand Prix victory in Formula, being only the fifth Australian driver to do, with a gap of over two seconds.

Hamilton finished in the final podium position of third place, with Leclerc taking an impressive fourth for Ferrari, and Verstappen ending in fifth, pending a stewards’ investigation over his previous incident with Hamilton.

Sainz finished in sixth, ahead of Perez and Russell in P7 and P8 respectively, having both made impressive ground from their low grid positions at the start of the race. The RB of Tsunoda finished in ninth to take two championship points, ahead of Aston Martin’s Stroll rounding out the top-10.