Lucky Lando Norris WINS the Hungarian Grand Prix after team-mate Oscar Piastri's spectacular capitulation - while Kimi Antonelli gains the upper hand on title rivals Lewis Hamilton and George Russell

Lucky, lucky, Lando. Not that world champion Norris was other than often the fastest hound in the Hungarian Grand Prix and should have won it on his own.

But he was helped, first, by a bizarre incident befalling his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri handing him the victory chance his pole position deserved and his poor opening lap, sorry, did not.

This first of two pivotal moments in Norris’s triumph came on lap 38 when Piastri, who had pitted for a second time, was trying to make progress back into the lead. Williams’ Carlos Sainz – the villain of the piece – was fighting with Fernando Alonso for 15th and in his path.

Distracted by his skirmish, Sainz was oblivious of Piastri poised to lap him. It was blue-flag time. The Spaniard should have yielded. He did not.

Piastri fumed: ‘Get out of the f***ing way, you idiot.’ They banged tyres. ‘Oh, my God!’

All this confusion was delaying Piastri, obviously, while Norris was making hay out where the sun shone. After Norris was called in at the end of the following lap, he emerged in front of the other papaya car. Job done.

Piastri was furious. Obviously with Sainz. But also, it seemed, with his McLaren team for granting Norris freedom to open up an advantage for seven laps after his own stop.

Piastri’s race engineer Tom Stallard came on the radio, to pacify him, saying: ‘Oscar, it’s Sainz that cost us. Target is to get to the end on these tyres.’

Piastri rejoined: ‘Oh, mate, just don’t talk to me now.

‘Nice of you guys to factor that one (the traffic) in by the way, thanks.’

If he believes the team pull for Norris, their hand-reared champion, rather than him, this reverse would hardly have put his mind to rest.

The second and final slice of luck working for Norris came as Piastri, who seemed set to finish second, conked out with a gearbox problem, his race over on lap 56 of 70.

Thus, without any concerns at all, Norris went on to claim the first win of his title defence, indeed since the Sao Paulo Grand Prix last November.

Now more drama ensued as a virtual safety car was enlisted. Lewis Hamilton, on a unravelling weekend for him given what riches it promised, had succeeded the stricken Piastri in the running order.

This was not to last. Norris came in for new tyres and so did Hamilton. For Norris, fine, back out in top spot. But Hamilton emerged from the pits virtually level with third-placed Kimi Antonelli, and, although the seven-time world champion pushed himself ahead of the Italian into and out of the first corner, it was not legit.

Was he speeding in the pits? He was placed under investigation for the suspected offence and handed a five-second penalty a few minutes later. ‘They are handing out penalties like crazy,’ said Hamilton, though he later relented in his criticism of the beak.

He had already been told by his pit wall to hand the place back to Antonelli, but that is not quite how it stayed: yes, Norris took the flag first, Max Verstappen second (because he did not stop under the VSC) and Antonelli third. But Hamilton’s penalty dropped him below team-mate Charles Leclerc and into fifth place.

What a headache for Hamilton, who had started where he was condemned to finish after being demoted three places on Saturday for inadvertently blocking Piastri in qualifying. Instead of clipping Antonelli’s championship lead by six points, as he was due to do prior to the Australian’s retirement, he fell five points back. He is 50 behind Antonelli heading into the sport’s summer holidays.

A thought: why didn’t Ferrari slow down Leclerc? Do they not want to win the drivers’ title?

George Russell, seventh on the day, is now 59 adrift, nine points down on his starting position. Not great for the Briton, but not the worst outcome given how he watched the field fly by him at the start as anti-stall kicked in on his Mercedes. He went down to 19th at the end of lap one, but, helped by a new engine fitted after the race, came through the midfield.

‘I am past the point of disappointment now,’ said Russell, with a resigned smile. ‘If I continue to be disappointed with everything that goes on, I’ll be disappointed every day of the week.

‘My pace was as strong as anyone out there, and I haven’t been there for the past two or three races, so I will take the positives there. But it is unbelievable the list of things that have gone wrong this season.

‘I was on the throttle holding the revs, and four seconds before the lights went out the engines started revving all over the place – the engine wasn’t reacting to the throttle. It is a brand new engine. No idea.’

There was little overtaking to savour, though Verstappen made a brilliant pass on Hamilton at the first corner – named after his (Verstappen’s) de facto father-in-law Nelson Piquet. He caught the Briton by surprise, a typical Max mugging.

Piastri did not need to exert such virtuosity as an old Norris habit came back to haunt him, namely his weakness on first laps that has repeatedly cost him wins from promising starting positions, especially in 2024 when he had an outside chance of claiming the title a year before he did.

Norris was very smartly away from pole and took the first corner in command. But he drifted wide at the second bend, named after Hamilton, and Piastri assumed the lead.

Norris possessed more pace than his team-mate and harried him, but Piastri held track position until his afternoon unknotted itself. Norris finally streaked away, finishing 15 seconds up the road and out of sight, a smile back on the champion’s face after a welcome victory of persistence and pace as well as good fortune.