'The car was unbelievable': Norris heaps praise on McLaren after winning in Hungary

[p]The 26-year-old Briton repeated his 2025 victory at the Hungaroring, where McLaren have won for the last three years and became the first winner there from pole position since seven-time champion [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/hamilton-lewis/tI5Vpe1h/"]Lewis Hamilton[/a] triumphed for Mercedes in 2020.[/p][p]"Wooohh!" he cried on team radio. [b]"Beautiful. The car was unbelievable today. Well done, guys. Incredible. We're flying![/b][/p][p][b]"Thank you so much for the car. So nice to be able to do it all for you again. It feels like it's been a while. Congrats! Hard work pays off!"[/b][/p][p][a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/norris-lando/WSVABbVF/"]Norris[/a] recovered from losing his pole advantage on the opening lap, when teammate [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/piastri-oscar/MqKAIeUf/"]Oscar Piastri[/a] passed him.[/p][p]The Briton produced impressive, stunning laps of consistent pace to regain the lead and finish 15 seconds clear of [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/verstappen-max/UV3mgeXB/"]Max Verstappen[/a] of Red Bull.[/p][embed guid="519ab4ac-a650-4063-bb48-afae4aa55dcc" url="https://x.com/F1/status/2081403652472812009" social-type="twitter" /][p]Piastri was forced to retire with gearbox problems after a clash with Williams' [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/sainz-carlos-jr/l6kEzjTF/"]Carlos Sainz[/a], for which the Spaniard was handed a five-second penalty.[/p][h2]'A lot to unpack'[/h2][p]World championship leader [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/antonelli-andrea-kimi/ptGu0mT1/"]Kimi Antonelli[/a] finished third for Mercedes to increase his lead in the title race to 50 points ahead of seven-time champion Hamilton of Ferrari, who finished fifth after taking a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane, to 50 points.[/p][p][b]"I don't know what happened at the start," [/b]Norris said. "I just kept losing the rear. I had two or three big snaps which felt horrible, and of course Oscar did a good job to get the cutback and go past me.[/p][p]"I think I was just a bit wide in the dirt so it was game over for the first lap![/p][p][b]"Then I was pushing like hell to try and force him into a mistake. My pace was probably some of the best pace I have ever had. The car was beautiful to drive, and I had confidence.[/b][/p][p][b]"It was a great race and to get it back in terms of going long, which is certainly not what I was expecting! The pace was so good. I could always extend the stint, and then my fresh tyres won me the race. So, I'm just happy to be back and be number one again!"[/b][/p][embed guid="af4614a3-5884-4f84-9484-fdd8a8517268" url="https://x.com/F1/status/2081387089447289206" social-type="twitter" /][p]Teammate Piastri said he was uncertain how his gearbox broke before his retirement on lap 56 of the 70, 17 laps after his clash with Sainz.[/p][p][b]"When it broke, I was just taking my normal line, so I'm not sure what it was. It was the highlight of my race, when I was leading, and it went downhill from there.[/b][/p][p][b]"There's a lot to unpack: firstly the pace on hard tyres was just nowhere and then obviously getting taken out by a backmarker is never really one of the things you think can go wrong, but I was proved wrong![/b][/p][p]"And then, the gearbox..."[/p][p]Team boss Andrea Stella said it had been a positive surprise to see McLaren's updated package win the race and added that Piastri's clash with Sainz had "caused quite a bit of loss of time. We know Carlos is such a fair, correct driver, so if this is happening then that means something was not working correctly."[/p]