In the last race before Formula 1’s summer break, McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri gave a definitive confirmation that the second half of the season is going to see them locked in battle for the world championship. McLaren’s seventh 1-2 of the season at a time when every team’s developments are now effectively switched off in favour of the new format 2026 cars looks to have locked-in its massive lead in the constructors’ championship and so now the contest is only about which of its drivers will prevail in the remaining 10 races.

But the way in which Norris beat Piastri around the Hungaroring was somewhat unusual. As was the fact that both had to concede pole to Charles Leclerc’s untypically fast Ferrari. That had come about as the wind changed direction and intensity between Q2 and Q3 – something which cost the McLarens around 0.5sec of performance but left the Ferrari relatively unaffected. In hindsight, that was an important clue in explaining how this race would pan out.

The expectation going in was that normal McLaren domination service would quickly be resumed in the race after Leclerc’s starring qualifying cameo. But that isn’t what happened at all – not in the first stint at least where Leclerc in the lead had genuinely great pace and actually edged away from the chasing Piastri. Norris meanwhile had dropped from third on the grid to fifth after Turn 2, with George Russell and Fernando Alonso taking advantage of his checked momentum into Turn 1 as he was forced to back off to avoid his team-mate. Norris quickly picked off Alonso’s Aston Martin but Russell’s Mercedes was faster at the end of the straights and proved impossible to pass. This looked set to doom Norris’s hopes of fighting Piastri as the lead two left the Mercedes well behind.

“Leclerc in the lead had genuinely great pace and he edged away”

Leclerc’s pace – which saw him pull out around 3sec over Piastri in that first stint – was only partly explained by how the following car invariably gives its front tyres a harder time here and how Piastri had quickly switched his focus on the race’s longer game by preserving his rubber. It was also about how outright fast the Ferrari was. Why was it so? Judging by the amount of underbody sparks it was throwing out when heavily fuelled, it was running very low. The performance benefits of running lower with these ground effect cars are enormous. But the concern then becomes plank wear, the very thing which caught Ferrari out in China earlier in the season.

Ferrari, figuring the long medium-speed bends of this track represented their best chance of being genuinely competitive in the remainder of the season, had opted to go aggressive on ride height (see panel, previous page) to boost its grid position, and then defend around a track on which overtaking is difficult. The pole had been an unexpected bonus as the understeer balance which the low rear ride height brought had by chance been exactly what was needed when the wind played its tricks in Q3.

“Leclerc’s pace fell off. Ferrari’s gamble on ride height had bust”

This was calculated to be a two-stop race because of the heavy rear tyre thermal degradation imposed by the track. As the first stops were approaching, and Piastri had a gap to drop into, McLaren brought him in to apply undercut pressure to Leclerc. Ferrari responded a lap later and Leclerc emerged still ahead. Russell had also pitted, leaving Lando Norris in the lead. His strong pace led his race engineer Will Joseph to ask what Norris thought about the idea of trying for a one-stop. With nothing to lose, Norris responded: “Yeah, why not.”

Piastri meanwhile was finding he could catch Leclerc much easier in the second stint than had been the case in the first. The Ferrari was not as quick on this set of tyres than the previous. But still there was no way for Piastri to pass. Aware by now that Norris was staying out and was likely one-stopping, he was losing valuable time stuck behind the Ferrari. The two-stop was a faster strategy in theory – so long as you were not delayed by a slower car as your one-stopping rival got clear air. “Could we one-stop from here?” Piastri asked his race engineer Tom Stallard. But he’d made that first stop too early for that now to be feasible. He was locked into the same two-stop as Leclerc.

Norris ran for an extra 12 laps over Piastri in his first stint, rejoining fourth but with less than a pitstop’s-worth of gap over the cars ahead, all of which had to stop again. He also had a nice gap of clear air and began setting one fastest lap after another, giving his engineer concern that he was pushing too hard, Joseph reminding him that he’d need to have tyre grip left late in the race as Leclerc and Piastri came at him on new tyres. But Norris was actually judging it perfectly.

Leclerc was not going to be a threat. After making his second stop, his pace fell off – enabling Piastri to breeze by and for Russell to further demote him. Ferrari’s gamble on ride height had bust, as they desperately tried to ensure plank wear remained legal.

Once Piastri was by Leclerc, he was 12sec behind Norris with 25 laps to go on tyres 14 laps newer. The numbers said his tyres would be almost 1sec per lap quicker and he needed to catch Norris by only 0.5sec per lap. But there was another number which doomed his chances – the 1.4sec per lap difference in pace needed to make an overtake. He could catch him – and did – but was unable to pass as Norris placed himself perfectly. Piastri made a desperate late-braking passing attempt into Turn 1 with two laps to go but locked up.

So like that, Norris had used his lower initial position to tactical advantage as Piastri was thwarted by a quick-slow Ferrari. It brought Norris within nine points of Piastri’s world championship lead.