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BUDAPEST: Lando Norris held off McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri to win the Hungarian Grand Prix on a one-stop strategy and slash the Australian’s Formula One lead to nine points going into the August break.

Norris completed 39 of the 70 laps on a single set of hard tires while Piastri stopped twice and closed a 12-second gap to just 0.6 at the finish, with a nail-biting chase to the chequered flag and a near-collision.

George Russell took a distant third, 20 seconds down the road, to complete the Hungaroring podium for Mercedes and take his fifth podium of the season.

“I’m dead. I’m dead. It was tough,” gasped Norris, who started in third place — with Piastri second — and then went down to fifth after being squeezed at the start.

“We weren’t really planning on the one-stop but after the first lap it was kind of our only option to get back into things.

“I didn’t think it would get us the win, I thought it would get us maybe into second.”

The win was Norris’s fifth of the season, and third in the last four, to Piastri’s six. It was also McLaren’s seventh one-two in 14 races.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was a frustrated fourth, after starting on pole position but losing out with a two-stop strategy and a five-second penalty for erratic driving as Russell challenged.

Fernando Alonso finished fifth for Aston Martin, ahead of Sauber’s sixth-placed Brazilian rookie Gabriel Bortoleto.

Lance Stroll was seventh for Aston Martin ahead of Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson, with Red Bull’s reigning champion Max Verstappen and Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli completing the top 10 scoring positions.

Seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton, an eight-times winner in Hungary, started in 12th place for Ferrari and finished there.

The Briton was lapped by the leaders six laps from the chequered flag.

BUDAPEST: Charles Leclerc snatched a surprise first pole position of the year for Ferrari at the Hungarian Grand Prix on Saturday, beating both McLarens.

Leclerc punched the air in delight as he climbed out of the car after beating Oscar Piastri by 0.026 of a second and the other McLaren of Lando Norris by .041.

Leclerc had consistently been the best of the rest behind the McLarens in practice but remained well off Piastri and Norris’ pace. That changed in qualifying, with the help of gloomy, windy conditions that worked against the McLarens.

Still, pole came as a shock. “What?” Leclerc exclaimed over the radio when he was told he’d qualified first.

It was a stark contrast with yet another frustrating day for Lewis Hamilton in the other Ferrari.

Hamilton has won the Hungarian Grand Prix a record eight times but qualified 12th as the seven-time champion’s troubles in his first season with Ferrari continued.

“Every time, every time,” Hamilton told the team over the radio after he qualified outside the top 10 for the second straight race.

Defending champion Max Verstappen was only eighth after struggling with the balance of his Red Bull, and his teammate Yuki Tsunoda was 16th. That piles more pressure on the Japanese driver, who hasn’t scored a point in six races.