F1 Grand Prix, GP Hungary, Hungaroring

Despite a sensational pole position from Ferrari's Charles Leclerc on Satuday, the Hungarian Grand Prix ended in a one-two finish for McLaren, its fourth in a row and the sixth this season. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo delivers drivers' reactions from the Hungaroring.

McLaren

Lando Norris, 1st
"The perfect result today. Another 1-2 and I’m really pleased to win the 200th Grand Prix for McLaren. It means a lot to me, and it’s even more rewarding because it was a tough race.

"We weren’t planning on the one-stop at the beginning, but after the first lap it was the only option to challenge the cars around us. I knew our pace was good, even in the first stint behind George, so I knew I could push in clean air. It’s always a gamble, but it also requires no mistakes, good laps, good strategy and good pit stops, and that’s what we had today.

"Credit to Oscar who put up a good charge. I look forward to plenty more of these after the summer break."

Oscar Piastri, 2nd
"It's always frustrating to miss out on the win by such a small margin, but overall, another great result for the team. It's easy in hindsight to say the one-stopper would have been quicker, but there was only a second in it, so it's something we will review as a team.

"It was an entertaining and fun race all things considered, and the team executed well, especially on the pit stops. Now for a well-earned break, thanks to the team for all of their work so far this season."

Mercedes

George Russell, 3rd
"It’s great to be back on the podium. We’ve taken a step forward with the car this weekend, so it is a deserved reward for the hard work of everyone at Brackley and Brixworth. It looked like we were on for a lonely P4, but we closed on Leclerc in the closing stages.

"The overtake itself was a little dicey; I committed to the corner, and he clearly moved under braking, for which he was given a penalty. Thankfully there was no harm done and we were able to take P3.

"This result gives us encouragement heading into the summer break and we can look forward to the final 10 races of the year now with more confidence. We can’t get carried away as we didn’t expect to be in the top three this weekend.

"We know the competitive order behind McLaren is tight and we will need to be at our best to fight for podiums consistently in the second half of the season."

Kimi Antonelli, 10th
"That final stint was a very long one. It felt never-ending! I did close to 50 laps on that Hard tyre and by the end, I was just hanging on out of the final corner each lap and defending into turn one.

"The cars behind had superior grip but I was able to keep them behind. It felt great to get that final point as our pace in free air was good. If I can start nearer the front after the summer break, then I know we can fight for good points each weekend.

"I am really happy that my confidence in the car has come back this weekend. I leave Budapest feeling much more comfortable after moving back to the previous rear suspension. Yesterday’s qualifying was just a shame as the pace was clearly there. We can take this feeling into the second half of the season and look forward to it with optimism now."

Ferrari

"This is not the outcome we hoped for but there was nothing we could have done to control it considering the issue we had. I got some more insight into what was happening after getting out of the car and it turns out that we had an issue on the chassis that started just about when I began to feel a difference in how the car behaved.

"It’s frustrating, because I think we could have won today, but we will return after the summer break and give it our all to come back stronger."

Lewis Hamilton, 12th
"It’s been a challenging weekend and one to move on from. We weren’t able to make the progress we hoped for but I’m grateful for the effort everyone in the team put in throughout the weekend. Now we head into the break. I’ll be using the time to reset, recharge and come back stronger. I’m not where I want to be yet, but the fight’s not over - don’t count me out."

Aston Martin

"Today's race went to plan for us and we maximised the performance of the car this weekend. It was a good job by everyone in the team and we are happy to have scored 16 points. We had some threats to deal with in the race, but we managed to keep them behind.

"The performance we've shown here has been a nice surprise, but we need to analyse everything from Spa and Budapest so we can better understand why we were much faster here in Hungary. I will enjoy the short break now and I look forward to racing again in Zandvoort."

Lance Stroll, 7th
"It was a great day for the team and a solid weekend from start to finish. Heading into the summer break with 16 points is a big uplift for us. But we have lots to learn from this weekend because we don't fully understand why we were more competitive here.

"We need to be in a place where we can put the car in that window at more tracks because ultimately, we want to be at this level of competitiveness more consistently. We'll see how we go in Zandvoort after the break because it's a very different kind of track."

Racing Bulls

Isack Hadjar, 11th
“It’s pure frustration just missing out on points. The pace was strong all weekend, and I felt confident going into the race. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a great launch at the start.

"I gave it everything on lap one, but got overtaken and ended up getting stuck behind other cars. On the Medium tyres, our pace was solid. It’s a good result for the team and for Liam, there are definitely plenty of positives to take away. The car has the potential, I just need to put everything together when it counts.

"We’ve been a bit unlucky in the last few races, but I’m optimistic about the second half of the season. I’ll stay focused on what’s ahead and come back stronger after the summer break.”

"I'm very happy with today's result. It was a tough race and trying to find a window for boxing was tricky with all the traffic. The speed was really good as well as the degradation on the tyres, so everything was well executed by the team.

"It's never easy keeping a driver like Max behind you, but our strategy meant that we could keep position until the end. It's obviously great to have more consistency over the most recent races, but the key thing is for us to keep the momentum going following the much-deserved summer break."

Red Bull

Max Verstappen, 9th
"Unfortunately, the whole weekend wasn’t good for us and we need to understand why that was. It has been quite tough as we got stuck in between cars during the race and struggled for grip.

"Although the high speed was okay, the low and medium speed wasn’t good. There are a lot of things to understand as the car has been difficult all weekend and we couldn’t turn things around unfortunately. Like we always do, we will analyse everything and take learnings from the weekend to find more performance as we go into Zandvoort.

"Ultimately, this weekend hasn’t gone to our liking, but it is now summer break and I can enjoy time with family and friends and not think too much about the racing side of things. There are many more races left and we can look to do better after the break. We want to aim to be more consistent and always try and even though it was a disappointing result we will keep our head up."

Yuki Tsunoda, 17th
"This weekend has been a tough one for the Team. We knew coming into today that it would be tricky to move up into the points, and once I had damage to the front wing our race was effectively over.

"The gurney flap fell off halfway through and that cost us a lot of pace and worsening grip, so we then lost the ability to make a positive strategy call that would benefit us. Looking back on the season so far I can feel pretty positive, we've made progress, especially since the new floor upgrades were brought to Spa.

"The gap with Max continues to close, it may not feel like we are getting there but on paper we are only 1/10th off his pace, I'm not sure many other drivers could get as close to him.

"I am heading straight to the factory tomorrow to go into the Sim, we need to investigate where we went wrong and put in some hard work over the summer break so that we don't start the next half of the season how we finished this one. It's frustrating but we will stay positive and bounce back stronger."

Williams

Alex Albon, 15th
"It was a very tough weekend. I came into this weekend optimistic, and I feel like we're a little bit exposed around this track and the car didn't really suit it. We struggled in the race more than I thought we would. We need to do our homework because I know we would do a better job if we had another go at it. It's going to be a dogfight for the rest of the year and it's not going to be easy.

"I think we favour the lower downforce circuits and others probably favour the higher downforce ones, so we'll see how it plays out. But I'm going to fight like hell to keep P5 in the Championship for us and I'm sure Carlos feels the same. It's going to be a fight to the end."

Carlos Sainz, 14th
"It was a cleaner weekend for us; it’s just a shame it’s not on a weekend where the car is strong. P13 looked like the maximum, which is where we would’ve been without the incident with Gasly.

"We tried to do a one-stop but that was probably too optimistic going from the Soft to the Hard, but we tried to do something different before switching to the two-stop. I’m leaving the first half of the season slightly disappointed as we didn’t maximise the weekends where we were stronger, but hopefully the second half of the season is the other way around.

"A big thanks to the team for their massive effort and to all our fans for their endless support. We’ll reset, recharge and come back stronger for the rest of the season!"

Haas

Esteban Ocon, 16th
“It was a difficult day for sure. We struggled a little bit, especially towards the end, as I think the cars behind were a bit quicker on fresher tyres. We got ahead of them, so we gave ourselves the opportunity.

"It was a solid start, but we need to work on how we can get the car a little bit more under control and get more pace throughout the race. Looking at this first half of the season, there are definitely some positives – a decent amount of points – but we’re not consistent enough.

"If you look at Spa, we had a mega performance in the Sprint, and obviously we’re not there every single weekend, but we’re working on it and I have full trust in this team.”

Oliver Bearman, DNF
“We managed to run in P10 for the first stint, but I was really clinging on the whole way. I was really struggling with the feeling of the car, and I had massive oversteer throughout. It progressed in the second stint, picking up some damage somewhere because we saw a big drop in loads, and by that point, it was clear that we couldn’t finish the race.

"It’s disappointing as we had a decent qualifying and opening lap today, but from there I wasn’t looking forward, I was looking behind. We need to understand why that was the case because in the last few races I’ve been feeling really good in race trim, but this weekend it hasn’t been the case.”

Alpine

“We cannot be pleased with the end result today, even if it felt like our execution was quite good. Ultimately, we are just too slow. The last two weekends we have been able to maximise the conditions and come away with two good results.

"Today was more conventional and it really highlighted our weak spots. Still, there were a lot of fun battles out there and I felt like the racing was generally very good. I am here to race, not to give up, and I just gave it my best in all the wheel-to-wheel fights. Now, the team and I are staying in Budapest for a test before the summer break.

"We have all been working extremely hard and I am sure everyone is looking forward to a couple of weeks off. We will continue the hard work, especially with a lot of focus on 2026, but we are still aiming to come back in good shape for the remainder of this year.”

“It was not the best of days today and a difficult race for us as a team. The pace was good at times in clean air and I had the same feeling as yesterday, I think we have taken a good step forward with the car which has given me confidence.

"But with the blue flags and losing time in the pitlane, it really limited what we could achieve today. The initial start and getaway was good, but from there we fell back on the first lap and lost places. I was struggling with rear grip and sliding, which came back to us later in the race. We opted for a two-stop and unfortunately, we encountered issues on both which meant we were held longer than we expected.

"As a team, we've been very good recently with pitstops, but these things happen in racing. With the summer break we need to use this opportunity to rest and reset and be ready to go again in Zandvoort and try to understand where we can keep making improvements.”