Winners and losers from the 2026 Hungarian Grand Prix

Lando Norris returned to winning ways with a devastating turn of speed in Hungary, while it was a tough day for Oscar Piastri.

Here is PlanetF1.com’s full list of winners and losers from the 2026 Hungarian Grand Prix.

Winners and Losers from the 2026 Hungarian Grand Prix

Winner: Lando Norris

Having taken pole position by just 0.012 seconds, Norris’ race was compromised by his caution through Turn 2 as he was wrong-footed by the confidence shown by Oscar Piastri.

But, from there, it was evident that Norris had plenty of pace as he hounded Piastri lap after lap, rarely outside of the magic one-second window, and immediately improved by circa eight-tenths of a second a lap when he was released upon Piastri’s pitstop on Lap 33.

Would he have defeated Piastri if the Australian’s race had fallen apart shortly afterward? Certainly, his confidence in his own pace was real, as the British driver was uncharacteristically verbose in his self-praise following the chequered flag.

As the reigning World Champion, Norris has clearly learned how to channel his self-awareness into an increased ability to acknowledge his strengths just as much as his weaknesses – in the past, he’s tended to focus more on the negatives, meaning he’s appeared to be more easily mentally cowed than some of his rivals near the front of the grid.

But that was the old Norris, and the new Norris is cut from different cloth: he knew he could be quick, he produced that speed, caught and passed Kimi Antonelli, and romped home to a comfortable victory and properly ignited a fire in the Drivers’ Championship, even if the gap is still very large.

“Seeing what my pace was like and I was just better in every sense, in terms of degradation and pace [than Piastri],” Norris said.

“I was convinced I could still win the race, even after that, whether I would box or force him to box and I would go long, get fresh tyres and come back through. So, I was convinced I could win the race today, and we did.

“Of course, it was unfortunate for him and unlucky, because I think we could have had a 1-2. But otherwise, just my pace.

“My pace to stay so close to him for so long. We were just on another level today, and I felt in a very good flow of things. When the car’s good and when I’m in a good flow, there’s no stopping.”

Giving up track position at the start cost Norris the chance to utterly crush the field and, at any other circuit, Piastri would likely have fallen prey to his teammate, such was the pace Norris had in hand over him. A champion’s drive.

Loser: Oscar Piastri

On one hand, it was a great race for Oscar Piastri.

After all, raw speed isn’t the be-all and end-all of a race and, at the start, the Australian nailed the early metres to wrest the lead away from Norris and set about hemming in his teammate’s pace.

With overtaking at a premium at the Hungaroring, even with the new regulations, Piastri looked entirely capable of soaking up the pressure from his teammate, but the complexion of the race changed on Lap 33 when he came in for his second stop.

With Norris upping his pace, Piastri made the most of his fresh tyres to lap even faster, but then encountered the Williams of Carlos Sainz.

The Spaniard wasn’t paying attention to what was happening behind him (more on that soon!), and Piastri duly got seriously held up before the unthinkable: a collision between the pair that saw Piastri battling to keep control over both his car and his temper.

The time loss gave Norris the opportunity to pit and lead, while Piastri glowered at the situation over team radio – his pace had been enough to likely retain the lead, had the Sainz incident not occurred. But it all became academic shortly after, as his gearbox failed.

It was a devastating sequence of events for Piastri, and the usually taciturn Australian was uncharacteristically vehement in his criticism of Sainz in the aftermath as he labelled it “one of the dumbest things he’s ever seen on a race track.”

Was there more to Piastri’s anger than just seeing the victory slip through his fingers?

After all, regardless of what way you cut it, Norris was the far quicker man on race pace, and this fact can’t have been lost on Piastri.

At a time where he may be feeling a little uneasy about the apparent interest from Max Verstappen in eyeing up his race seat as a backup option, a defining result got away from him.

The bigger picture is also whether or not Piastri has been left behind by Norris somewhat since the change in the regulations.

The shock to the system of his title loss, in such a short and devastating flurry at the end of last year, was hardly fully digested by the time this season began and, with Norris going from strength to strength as an all-round driver, the question marks over Piastri’s outright race pace that had ebbed away in the first half of 2025 have returned.

Winner: Max Verstappen

The four-time F1 World Champion may have hated every second of his driving experience in Hungary, but that didn’t stop him putting on one of his most impressive displays of 2026 in a car he’s made it very clear he finds uncomfortable to drive.

“Honestly, I think it was one of the hardest races of this year in terms of how I felt in the car,” he said.

“How I had to manage the balance as well, corner to corner. So, to be on the podium, I think, was an incredible result for us.”

A great first lap got him into third where he proceeded to hold off the attentions of Lewis Hamilton, with the Ferrari driver clearly quicker at that point on the soft tyre choice.

Upon being undercut by Hamilton, it would have been easy to assume that Verstappen would drop away and, indeed, for any lesser driver, that would likely have been the case.

But spotting a moment in which Hamilton appeared caught unawares of Verstappen’s lingering proximity, the Dutch driver sprung a surprise attack into Turn 1 in a move that goes against everything the current regulation set punishes.

Was it a case of Verstappen being unable to resist his normal aggressive instincts, or conscious thought that the characteristics of the Hungaroring largely negated the energy constraints that, at most tracks, would have made him vulnerable to Hamilton immediately after his move?

Or might Hamilton have assumed that Verstappen wouldn’t make a move, based on the logic that, throughout 2026, late braking moves aren’t optimal for energy deployment strategies?

Either way, it was a rare and welcome reprieve from the deluge of beige overtakes that have been the mainstay of this new formula: a move in which it was clearly the driver, and not the battery, that made the difference.

“I saw the opportunity as my only one and I just went for it. We were good on the brakes, so that helped, but it was all under control,” Verstappen said of the move.

From there, Verstappen had the Ferrari in hand, but still had to worry about a long final stint as Red Bull opted for the softs for the final stint.

But he made it work: massaging it home into second place, as Ferrari took themselves out of contention with another stop.

“I don’t really understand how we are second,” Verstappen said, summing up the thoughts of most observers.

“But I think, as a team, we performed strongly. I see it as a bit of an overperformance compared to what we expected, so I guess that’s a good thing considering how everything felt.

“I was still struggling with the same things as yesterday, so the car was just extremely oversteery, just degging quite hard at one point as well.”

More from the Hungarian Grand Prix

Hungarian GP conclusions: Norris afterglow, Piastri the nearly man, Newey insult

Hungarian GP 2026 driver ratings: Norris delivers as Sainz hands Piastri nightmare blow

Loser: Ferrari

As Uros Radovanovic has outlined in his explanation of Ferrari’s strategy choices in Hungary, the Scuderia did its very best to throw away a good result in Hungary, and achieved that goal admirably.

At a track where track position is almost as important as in Monaco, the decision to pit Hamilton in the closing stages, taking on the soft tyres again, ultimately proved less than beneficial – staying out would likely have been the better choice.

“In hindsight, my tyres were totally fine,” Hamilton said.

“I was probably going to lose out to Max but I think I could have kept third at least. Then just opened up the door to the penalty that I got in the end.”

Hamilton himself fell foul of some silly penalties: blocking Piastri in qualifying cost him a three-place grid drop that was wholly unnecessary, while his release of the pitlane speed limiter a fraction of a second too early cost him more time.

The hard tyre choices also didn’t really work on the Ferrari, something Fred Vasseur said the team didn’t discover until “it was too late”, but, primarily, the main concern Ferrari should have going into the summer break is that it was a classic display of a race slipping away from the team at a track where its power unit deficiencies were less pronounced.

“Where we have to improve is that, if I draw a conclusion based on today, I would say execution,” Vasseur said of a main area of improvement his team will need to dig deep in the second half.

“But execution so far was probably a good one for us from the beginning of the season.”

Winner: Kimi Antonelli

Attempting something different with strategy, Mercedes plumped for the one-stop strategy with Antonelli, bringing him in on Lap 22 to ditch the mediums for the hards.

Realising it was too big an ask, the championship leader was forced to pit again with 17 laps to go, but still came out with a podium as he had enough pace in hand to cover off the Ferraris.

“Obviously, we were a bit lucky with the VSC, I mean, with Oscar’s issue, but other than that, we did the best we could,” Antonelli said.

“Conditions were quite difficult today, struggling a little bit with oversteer, balance and then understeer. So, yeah, conditions were not easy today, but I’m happy with the result.”

A successful championship campaign is as much about a driver’s ability to accept a more difficult weekend, rather than trying to force the issue by overdriving and aggression.

Maximising the points haul on such days is paramount to success, and that’s exactly what Antonelli did in Hungary, but did the Italian believe a win went begging?

“If I’d started P3, then it would have been another thing,” he said.

“But I think Lando still had the upper hand this weekend, even on us. On pure pace, I don’t think I would have been able to challenge him, especially with how difficult it was to follow as well, with a lot of tyre overheating. So, I think it would have been very difficult.

“But other than that, it was a great team effort. Also, with strategy, we took a risk initially and then we kind of pulled back a little bit because we were a bit concerned about safety. But still, despite that, they put me in a position to fight for, eventually, the podium. So, it was a great team effort.”

Walking away from Hungary with a bigger championship lead than he had upon arriving in Budapest is a hell of a result, capitalising upon Russell’s misfortunes and Ferrari’s fumbles.

Loser: George Russell

Starting from sixth on the grid, ahead of Antonelli after the Italian’s post-qualifying penalty, the British driver’s chances of a good result vanished as the lights went out, once again the victim of vicissitudes of his Mercedes.

Wayward throttle revving in the seconds before resulted in anti-stall kicking in, meaning Russell fell to the back of the pack: a doomed outcome at any track, let alone the sinewy Hungaroring.

“The engine just started revving all over the place, and I was reacting with my throttle,” Russell said of the incident, revealing it was something that Mercedes had encountered in pre-season testing.

“It wasn’t doing nothing, so the engine wasn’t reacting to the throttle.”

“It looks like that he gave about 10 per cent throttle and the whole thing revved maximum,” Toto Wolff explained afterwards.

“He went off the throttle and it bogged down.”

In the end, a recovery to seventh place was a decent drive from there, and even though the result was “s**t”, according to his own words, he’s trying to find the bright side as what looked like a maiden title success is turning into one of the most horrible years of results he could have fathomed in such a quick car.

“I’m sort of past the point of disappointment now, because it’s just if I’m continuing to be disappointed with everything that goes on, I’ll just be disappointed every day of the week,” he said. “So it’s sort of like I’ve got to stay positive.”

Russell is perhaps the driver who needs the mental reset from F1 moreso than anyone else.

Winner: Nico Hulkenberg

Audi vs. Racing Bulls is developing into an intriguing fight in the midfield, with both teams appearing to have solid chassis and development progress.

Audi is now starting to unlock greater consistencies in its overall weekend execution and, at a track where outright engine power isn’t a priority, its strong chassis kept Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto in contention for points.

While the Brazilian has managed it on a few occasions this year, Hulkenberg was the driver on point on this occasion, and he scored a strong ninth place.

On a day where seven of the top eight cars finished, Hulkenberg was only beaten by the equally strong Liam Lawson, and the German was satisfied to have finally returned to the top 10.

“Well executed, clean weekend for the first time this year, Saturday and Sunday, and obviously good to tick the box with points to have that done and dusted,” he said.

“We’ll happily take that into the summer break. Now, some weeks to reflect and digest…”

Loser: Cadillac

Cadillac was wary of Aston Martin’s big upgrade, and those fears became reality as the American team struggled at the final race before the break.

Having had the strong start to life in Formula 1 by way of simply making the grid and competing, reality is starting to set in for Graeme Lowdon’s team as reliability and technical issues continue to plague the squad.

In Hungary, Valtteri Bottas was undone by his brakes catching fire, with the Finn reporting smoke in the cockpit before “everything was on fire” as he brought his car back into the pits and, briefly, becoming a genuine obstacle in the pitlane entry that could have had dire consequences for the frontrunners: Verstappen had just received an instruction to box but continued on track.

Sergio Perez was also eliminated with a suspension issue, although said afterwards he suspected a different root issue to the one that took him out in Montreal; he pointed out that he reckoned the issue was “internal.”

“Even if it’s a different problem, it’s another problem,” is how he summed it up, urging his squad to pull it together on reliability and operations.

“I’m sure that we will use this break to make sure we are able to clean and to improve all areas and different departments, because I think it’s really important how we are able to progress the second half of the season.”

Winner: Aston Martin

With expectations set so high (albeit not by the team itself) about the AMR26, jokes about the “Aston Martin era of dominance” swirled in the paddock after the reveal of the striking upgrade package in the pitlane on Friday.

Making it into Q2 on merit, Fernando Alonso proved the immediate impact of the changes with what was a definitive uplift in performance that has clearly moved the Adrian Newey squad ahead of Williams, while Lance Stroll and Alonso finished ahead of an Alpine and a Haas on race day as well.

“A good step forward,” was how Alonso summed it up, saying, “The correlation is good and the performance gains is what we expect.”

Even Lance Stroll, whose usual modus operandi in dealing with the media this year has been to provide monosyllabic mumblings of discontent, was effusive in his delight, speaking about the AMR26 being a “huge step” with “the most encouraging update we’ve had in a long time.”

Such gains being evident even before the updated Honda power unit is introduced is hugely encouraging, but the important factor for Aston Martin is that, having endured the pain of months of a lack of upgrades, Newey and Enrico Cardile’s updated AMR26 is evidence that the new tools and infrastructure behind the walls of Aston Martin’s Silverstone facility is starting to yield fruit: important now, and crucial for the 2027 development.

“I think it’s obviously early days with this new car,” Alonso said.

“It’s a completely new car, new concept. So more to come, maybe on setup, optimisation, and things like that.

“So next races also with the engine upgrade will be an interesting check in Zandvoort.”

With Newey’s tendrils now starting to unlock the potential of Lawrence Stroll’s vast investment, just how far will this journey go?

“We said the main objective is to go back racing,” Mike Krack said.

“I think we achieved that upgrade package works, and now we need to bring the next steps.”

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