EmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsBUDAPEST -- The podium of the Hungarian Grand Prix looked like a glimpse of Formula 1 in live motion: The previous, the current and, as is looking more and more likely, the future world champion, all sharing the rostrum together.Reigning champion Lando Norris' first victory of his title defense season was a brilliant statement win, beating four-time world champion Max Verstappen, who claimed an unexpected second-place finish for Red Bull, and runaway 2026 points leader Kimi Antonelli in third. All three delivered drives worthy of accolades.Meanwhile, Ferrari -- which had seemed the favorite going into qualifying on Saturday -- and Antonelli's Mercedes teammate George Russell faltered, for different reasons, but in ways that quite nicely sum up the 2026 both parties have had so far this year. The race of Norris' McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri, meanwhile, seemed to encapsulate the last 12 months of his career.It was all very fitting for a race that marked the midpoint of F1's 2026 season and the beginning of the midyear summer break.Norris and Piastri roll back to 2025Norris has cut a frustrated figure for parts of this season. He has been unable to truly mount a defense of his maiden world championship in a car that started the year unreliable, featuring a Mercedes power unit McLaren wasn't always getting the most out of.Sunday's race, however, felt a bit like 2025 for McLaren: A surprising early bolt to the lead by Piastri and a tight fight in the middle of the contest before things fell apart for the Australian as Norris grew increasingly confident. Verstappen even finished second again -- as he had so often last season -- to keep the nice parallel going. There was another little bit of dj vu as well: glimpses of the Papaya Rules McLaren spent 2024 and 2025 wrestling with regarding the competition between its two drivers. On lap 32, Norris asked to pit before the race-leading Piastri, which McLaren refused."You mean you won't let me? I'm miles faster," Norris replied. "I'll pull out a 10-second gap in no time."Unfortunately for Piastri, who as the lead car got the better strategic call of pitting first, he was released into traffic -- and the Williams of Carlos Sainz, who missed Piastri coming up behind him, amid a battle with Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso. Sainz instead drove into the side of the Australian's car, fortunately avoiding any race-ending contact."Getting crashed into by a lapped car is never one of the things you expect that can go wrong in your race," Piastri said later. "I don't really care if he didn't see me. The fact that he didn't and no one told him or there was a lack of complete awareness is unacceptable."He was fighting Fernando for last place like it was the world championship. It cost me the lead of the race. He's quite critical of others. Others have given him some stick before for being frustrating on track. When you go and do something like that, I think maybe you should look in the mirror a bit."Piastri had emerged from his stop 0.7s behind Norris, so it's impossible to argue the incident cost him the lead. The contact plus the extra few corners spent trying to get past Sainz alone could have accounted for that gap.While Piastri had struggled to shake Norris before the pit stop, the same was not true when the tables were turned. In fact, almost immediately, the gap grew -- and continued to do so. Norris appeared to want to hammer his initial point home. On lap 53, his race engineer Will Joseph politely reminded Norris to ease up and watch his lock-ups at Turn 1.A lap later, the ask was more clear: "Lando, you're clearly the fastest car and [have] nothing to prove, so the snaps at [Turn] 4 and 8, no more."A handful of laps later, Piastri was 13 seconds behind when his gearbox packed up for the day. Norris had lived up to his earlier radio message, and then some. He later admitted he was still toying with the idea of making a statement as he finished the race."A little part of me wanted to go for the fastest lap at the end," he joked after the race. "But I know Will would shoot me if I did that, so I had to not do it."Verstappen and Antonelli deliver the goodsThe two drivers who joined Norris on the podium Sunday both seemed surprised to be there."I was just like, 'How the hell did I end up here?'" Verstappen said, smiling. "That was it for me. I was shocked. I'm actually still shocked."Seeing a Red Bull on or close to the podium certainly would have been a bold prediction entering Sunday. Verstappen had been mad after qualifying, saying that Red Bull's car was degrading in terms of performance and calling the car's drop off "a joke".Even with the position gains from penalties for Antonelli and Lewis Hamilton, it had not seemed like there would be a lot for Verstappen and company to be excited about when the cars first lined up on the grid.The race proved otherwise. There was one particular moment for Verstappen: his lap 16 pass on Hamilton. Verstappen had lost a place to his 2021 title rival after the first set of pit stops, and the logic of the weekend to that point -- Ferrari's supreme pace in practice, for example -- suggested the red car would disappear into the distance. Then Verstappen launched one down the inside at Turn 1, in a move that will be difficult to beat for overtake of the year.The Dutchman was, typically, understated about the move after. "I knew that that was my only opportunity as well, because they were not too bad in terms of pace," he said. "So, when I saw the opportunity arise, I went for it and, yeah, it was a good move.Reacting to it live, Verstappen's race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase summed it up far better."Well, that was quite special," he said.And it really was.Even if Verstappen isn't a big fan of these new cars -- he said earlier in the week he is "fed up" with complaining about F1's current generation of cars, which he's dubbed "anti-racing" and compared to Mario Kart battles -- when given half a chance, he can still race them like the best overtaker of the modern era.Meanwhile, Antonelli's third-place finish sees him enter the summer break 50 points clear of Lewis Hamilton, 59 of George Russell. There are still a lot of races to run between now and the end of the year, but that's a mighty lead for a driver who has looked phenomenally quick most of this year.In response to a question ranking F1's top performers this year, Antonelli downplayed his own level."I don't really like judging, but I feel like I've done a good first half," he said. "But it's really hard to compare car to car. I think there's still a long way before I reach their level, the two drivers next to me."While talking about the champion-in-waiting, spare a thought for the man who was given that title by most, coming into the season. Russell's tag as the favorite for the championship only increased after winning in Australia. He's since been largely out-matched by Antonelli, though Russell can also quite easily claim to be the unluckiest man in F1 this year: His qualifying effort on Saturday was thwarted by a water leak, while his hopes of doing anything close to Antonelli on Sunday evaporated when anti-stall kicked in off the line and left him fighting from the back of the field.As he's had to do increasingly, Russell was putting a brave face on it."Honestly, I'm staying positive because I've gone through being so disappointed with everything that's happened this first half of the year," he said Sunday. "At one point you need to pick yourself up and accept there's a lot of things out of your control that may work against you. There's things in my control I need to do better and I'll continue to work on that. But, of course, I'm not happy with how things have gone."Ferrari's big weekend crumbles"Lewis was the one to win this race Saturday morning, [and] all of Friday, and we come out of this with a few points gained," Toto Wolff said Sunday after the race.It's a quote that makes for painful reading for Ferrari fans. The Hungaroring was supposed to shift the balance back to the red cars with their stronger chassis, and mask the power deficit they have had against Mercedes all year.And yet, their dominant form from the practice sessions diminished in qualifying, then disappeared completely in the race.After the race, Hamilton said, "It was pretty bad. Pretty frustrating."Ferrari had felt doubly confident, having saved both drivers an extra set of soft tyres going into the race. Both Hamilton and Charles Leclerc started on the softer rubber, which in theory should have given them more grip, and a racier car.How much hinged on the start? Leclerc was not sure Ferrari's race would have looked different had either he or Hamilton led into Turn 1. "[That scenario] is so different to the race I had... It's difficult to imagine something so different," he said after the race. "But obviously, it helps."Compounding the frustration will be that this felt like another weekend where Ferrari's performance across the board was below par. Poor communication between Hamilton and the team contributed to a three-place grid penalty for impeding Piastri during qualifying. Hamilton also picked up a five-second penalty at the end of the race for a minor speeding violation in the pit lane.The stop itself was confusing, too."I'm not really sure why we stopped at the end," a frustrated Hamilton said Sunday evening. "I got the call right before the pit lane entry, so I didn't have time to debate it. I would never have stopped if it meant that I was given up track position. So I thought that that would not be the case."I think we probably would have lost [second position] to Max -- he was on fresher tires -- maybe in that last stint. I may have been able to hold on to P2. He was catching me. But most likely it would have been P3 and it would have been much better. But instead, I lost a bunch of points."It felt a little too much like the Ferrari of recent past that repeatedly whiffed strategy calls in key moments. Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur later admitted the team just had not got things right."We never considered Red Bull's strategy because we pitted a little earlier than Max, and it seemed too ambitious to think we could go to the end of the race without taking tire life into account," he said. "The reality was different. We didn't have the opportunity to complete a long run on all three tire compounds during free practice, so we made two bets. Today, I can say those bets didn't pay off."Perhaps Hamilton's win in Spain and Leclerc's in Britain emboldened Ferrari to make those kinds of bets. And it is correct to say the team has made a marked improvement this year. But this felt like a deflating way for the Italian team to go into the summer break.Hamilton remains second in the drivers' championship and Ferrari second in the constructors'. All eyes now will be on how both driver and team come out of the summer break in Zandvoort and then the team's home race, the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.Hamilton did have a moment of positivity going into the recess. "It has been an amazing first half given I think we've been probably like three or four tenths down on the straights in pace and power for the first half of the season," he said. "I know the guys are pushing hard to bring upgrades for that. We've been bringing upgrades weekend in, weekend out. We've got a bit more to come in the second half, and we just keep on pushing. I think the second half will be stronger."Fans hoping for a championship that goes deep into 2026 will hope the seven-time world champion's optimism is well-founded.
