It was high drama at the end. And Lando Norris held on as Oscar Piastri came charging at him, two orange McLarens at the front separated by barely half a second as the chequered flag was waved.
For Norris, a valuable victory and ultimately delivered under pressure. But, in truth, a lucky one. A triumph that turned up out of a slight slip. He went on to a one-stop strategy as a result, and that helped do the trick.
Hoping for a tonic to take away with him into the summer break after losing out to Piastri in Belgium the previous weekend, he is now just nine points back from the Australian at the summit of the world championship scene.
Credit, too, to Piastri for clawing his way into the front of the contest, having been 12 seconds back when he came out from his second stop. Behind runner-up Piastri, came George Russell in third place for Mercedes.
At the other end of the see-saw, Lewis Hamilton was lapped and finished 12th (to which misery we shall return with sackcloth and ashes later).
Lando Norris won the Hungarian Grand Prix to push himself into the world championship fight
Norris held off a late challenge from team-mate Oscar Piastri for his third win in four races
Piastri’s attempted lunge saw the two McLarens come centimetres away from making contact
But back to Norris, for whom it had looked bleak after he was tentative while well-positioned at the opening bend of the race on Piastri’s inside. He braked, desperate to avoid contact, and went straight down from third on the grid into fifth.
While the cars in front peeled in for new tyres, Norris stayed out. The crucial question was put to him by his race engineer Will Joseph: ‘We’re in the one-stop window. Forty laps on the hard tyre. Are you up for it?’
‘Yea, why not!’ came Norris’s response. He had to gamble if he wanted to win.
On lap 31 of 70 he duly pitted to go on to those hard tyres that carried him home. He came out 19 seconds behind then-leader Leclerc, who had to stop again, as did Piastri and Russell ahead of him.
There was a moment Norris’s concentration wavered and he went on to the gravel. Joseph told him to keep his focus. ‘We can’t afford these mistakes,’ was the final encouragement.
It was dawning on Leclerc that after taking a brilliant and utterly unexpected pole on Saturday that the race was running away from him. ‘We’re going to lose,’ he said. ‘We’re losing so much time.’
He had looked in command in the early stages, his pace in clean air too brisk for even the McLarens. Yet, Leclerc’s speed fell off alarmingly – indeed inexplicably – and he was passed well by Piastri, thus slipping back to third and finally to fourth when Russell overtook him.
Credit to Norris for keeping his calm as he held off that late surge from Piastri, who locked up his front right on the penultimate lap in a final attempt to wrest victory. A slow-burner was firing nicely now.
Pole sitter Charles Leclerc was unable to hold off the charges of Piastri and Norris
Lewis Hamilton endured another miserable outing for Ferrari, finishing down in 12th place
But, in reality, it was one thing Piastri catching Norris and entirely another passing him, in the same machinery on a track that produced precious few such excitements.
‘I’m dead,’ said Norris afterwards. ‘It was tough. We weren’t planning on the one-stop but after the first lap it was kind of our only option to get back into things.
‘The final stint with Oscar catching, I was pushing flat out. My voice has gone a little bit. The perfect result.’
As for Lewis Hamilton, another chastening day after his depression of Saturday, one of the biggest meltdowns of his career. He called himself ‘absolutely useless’ and suggested Ferrari might be better off replacing him. Which is a strange one when you are paid £60million a year for your prowess.
He can be hard on himself in the midst of disappointment. He can also rally himself with renewed vigour the next day.
The omens Sunday morning were not good. On the driver parade, which takes place two hours before the lights go out, he had stood isolated at the front of the bus, away from his peers, hiding under an umbrella and avoiding the public address interviews.
Only his successor at Mercedes, 18-year-old Kimi Antonelli, went up to talk to the wounded lion.
Hamilton later looked distracted as the Hungarian national anthem played on the grid. And when the music stopped, he dropped two places at the start, down to 14th.
Norris has cut Piastri’s advantage down to just nine points ahead of the summer break
He was lapping 1.5sec slower than Leclerc, then in his purple patch. Admittedly he was on hard tyres and going long in his first stint. Max Verstappen was on his tail on lap 29.
‘I’m a sitting duck,’ complained Hamilton as the Dutchman closed in. How that idiom was interpreted on the Ferrari pit wall is anyone’s guess.
Anyway, Verstappen, who went on to finish ninth, audaciously lobbed himself up the inside. The pair nearly crashed. Hamilton ran off the track. The stewards investigated the incident after the race. No punishment was imposed.
Worse was to follow for Hamilton before a chink of sunshine. He was lapped as he finally pitted. On new tyres, he hit his stride, unlapping himself for a period as he zoomed past Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and Willliams’s Carlos Sainz.
But he was lapped again, suffering another August day as dark as winter.
He needs a few weeks away and he gets it before the circus starts up again in Holland on August 31.
Hamilton promised last night that he would be there. But which Lewis will turn up?
