Portugal Colonial - Norris heaps praise on McLaren for updated car and victory

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 Lewis Hamilton triumphed for Mercedes in 2020.

"Wooohh!" he cried on team radio.

"Beautiful. The car was unbelievable today. Well done, guys. Incredible. We're flying!

"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!"

Norris recovered from losing his pole advantage on the opening lap, when team-mate Oscar Piastri passed him.

The Briton produced impressive stunning laps of consistent pace to regain the lead and finish 15 seconds clear of Max Verstappen of Red Bull.

Piastri was forced to retire with gearbox problems after a clash with Williams' Carlos Sainz for which the Spaniard was handed a five-second penalty.

- 'A lot to unpack' -

World championship leader Kimi Antonelli finished third for Mercedes to increase his lead in the title race to 50 points ahead of seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton of Ferrari, who finished fifth after taking a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane, to 50 points.

"I don't know what happened at the start," 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.

"I think I was just a bit wide in the dirt so it was game over for the first lap!

"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.

"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!"

Team-mate 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.

"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.

"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!

"And then, the gearbox..."

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."

E.Borba--PC