“Do something please,” demanded Lando Norris of the McLaren pitwall on lap 31. “I want to box this lap. Verstappen is going to close in.”
Norris was being held to the pace of his race-leading team-mate Oscar Piastri and running only around 3sec clear of the Red Bull on the Hungaroring where heavy rear tyre deg can make the undercut big – but knowing he had the pace to put the issue beyond any doubt. If only he’d be allowed by.
“Lando, we can’t,” relayed his engineer Will Joseph after a pregnant pause.
“You mean you won’t let me,” responded Norris, his tone calm, his understanding that the lead car will get pitstop priority. “I’m miles faster. I’ll pull out a gap of 10sec on him even without new tyres.”
It was a nice problem for McLaren to have after its disappointing season to date, the revised aerodynamics from its updated floor putting it bang on the pace. Or Norris’s was, at least…
At Spa last week Piastri’s pace deficit to Norris was confirmed by Mercedes to be power unit (PU)-related. But as we explained last week, there wasn’t much real driving to be done at Spa in the ’26 generation of car. Around the Budapest track’s constant twists and short straights PU deployment wasn’t an issue and it was all about driving – and Piastri was miles off.
Norris led off the line, but a misjudged defensive line allowed Piastri past
Grand Prix Photo
These cars don’t like to be driven with the sort of wide entry, perfect geometric lines he (and George Russell) naturally favour. This track’s long medium-speed curves really brought this out. Norris’s early build-up to the direction change, turning in from mid-track at the crucial points, was perfect — and the updated McLaren was dynamite around these turns on a hot, hot Budapest day.
Norris had sneaked pole by a couple of hundredths from Lewis Hamilton‘s Ferrari, both drivers displaying a great feel for the demands of the track’s patchy grip. But once tyre deg was factored in on a track temperature of 50C-plus on race day, the new McLaren’s advantage was verging on sensational.
This much only became properly apparent once the race-leading Piastri got out of Norris’s way. Despite having led the race from Turn 2 on the opening lap — pouncing as Norris got out wide on the dust — Piastri was struggling badly this weekend. He’d qualified further off Norris’s pace than at any previous ’26 race. Yes, he’d lost his final lap through being baulked by Hamilton, but even that lap wasn’t going to put him anywhere near his team-mate. He’d been bumped up two grid places to third because Hamilton was taking a three-place grid drop for the impeding and fourth-fastest Kimi Antonelli was getting the same for not having slowed his Mercedes enough for yellow flags at the final turn (for a Verstappen spin). Starting P3 after being half a second off pole around a short track was a bonus — as was the greater grip on the clean side of the grid which allowed him to zap Charles Leclerc’s wheel-spinning Ferrari and get out of Turn 1 in second.
But once he was in that lead, the pace deficit to Norris was exposed once more. Just as soon as Norris stepped up the pace after about 10 laps. The fact that Piastri’s pace was not quite keeping Verstappen out of McLaren’s danger zone as the first of two stops beckoned, despite Max complaining that the Red Bull was so bad it felt like its damping had failed, painted the picture pretty clearly. Although he represented a danger to McLwhaaren at this Piastri pace, Verstappen was in fact doing a great job in keeping the faster Ferraris – which had started on softs, to the mediums of all the other front runners – off McLaren’s back.
Behind Piastri for the first part of the Hungarian GP, Norris only got to show his pace once he had clear air
McLaren
Was Oscar deliberately driving slowly to back Norris up into Verstappen? Like his mentor Mark Webber used to sometimes do to Sebastian Vettel? His later pace would suggest not. The first stops came and went with no change, Piastri in first as per team etiquette, Norris still frustrated behind him. Even more so now, as Piastri was really struggling on the hard tyre they’d switched to. Verstappen had his hands full being passed by and repassing Hamilton, with Leclerc watching on from close behind and Antonelli – trying for a one-stop – a couple of seconds further behind, as team-mate George Russell made a recovery drive after falling to 20th on the opening lap from a near-stall off the line.
Norris began to press his case over the radio as the second stops approached. “I wanted to box and undercut because my pace would have been so good, I could have pulled away a whole pitstop window, I think, on him and boxed again if I needed to. Or I get him to box early. I think we were on the fine line between boxing too early and harming both of our races.”
Hamilton’s early stop on lap 30 helped McLaren solve its dilemma in that it obliged them to bring Piastri in three laps later to prevent him being undercut by the new-tyred Ferrari – and leaving Norris out there in clear air for an extra six laps. Could Norris on his old tyres actually overcut himself in front as Piastri’s pace remained unremarkable?