‘Sublime’ Lando, the ‘Max factor’ + Fernando’s ‘fire’ – Hungarian GP Review

0:02Lando Norris wins the Hungarian Grand Prix for his first Grand Prix victory as world champion.

0:11James Hinchcliffe:Woo! Beautiful. That was as good a drive as we've, I think, ever seen out of him. It was a really sublime performance. Versteppen from Mylesburg! What a move from the four-time champ! Do you think Lewis will be eaten up by what happened? Oh yeah. And particularly by Max. Yeah, it can't make it better, that's for sure. The mechanics said that they could look into Fernando's eyes and see the fire burning again. A fifth different winner in 11 races. What a race we had at the Hungara Ring. Hello and welcome everyone to the Budapest Paddock. It's F1 Nation with me, Tom Clarkson, and F1 TV expert and IndyCar race winner, James Hinchcliffe.

0:59Now, Hinch, great to have you on the show again. Lots to discuss after that one.

1:04James Hinchcliffe:What was the headline for you? The dominance of Lando Norris. I mean, that was a truly, truly dominant performance. And I don't want to say unexpected, but to a degree unexpected, because McLaren's not been the car to beat so far this year. He was on pole by a hundredth of a second. so there was no real indications that it was going to be quite such a such a thrashing but he executed at such a high level today um team did a great job even after losing the lead i mean he had he had he was so fast he had strategy options even not being given the preferential strategy for mclaren he was able to overcome and uh and ultimately end up with the victory so for me it was just super impressive performance from him well let's break down his race can we talk about the opening lap first of all so he gets away in the lead and then we get around turn one what was your take on what happened at turn two with his teammate i think it's you know we always talk about how much this is a track position race and he was so desperate to hang on to the lead that you're barreling into turn two it's downhill it's it's combined braking there's it's windier than it's you know it's been all weekend there's different rubber on the track you're full of fuel he overshot it.

2:16James Hinchcliffe:I mean, it's as simple as that. Oscar was looking to the outside, so he wanted to make sure he didn't give him the opportunity to actually pull off an outside pass, because that's embarrassing. And he just slightly overdid it. I mean, I think people underestimate how difficult it is to judge the breaking points and your minimum speeds and all that on the first lap of a Grand Prix when you have a full tank of fuel. You haven't been on the track in almost 24 hours. There's lots of things have been on the track in that time. It's a very difficult thing to do. And when you're the leader, You're the first guy to the corner.

2:46James Hinchcliffe:You're kind of the guinea pig. Everyone else can judge off you. So simple mistake. Luckily, he hung on to it, only lost one spot. But it was race on from there. And then from there, I felt like we were in 2025 for a while because we had the two McLarens out front. There was Lando questioning strategy, trying to force Oscar to pit early and all that kind of thing. It felt like the Papaya rules were going to raise their ugly head. But there was two significant things that Lando said in the post-race press conference. One, the car was, and I'm quoting him, horrible to drive at points in that race, but it was always super quick.

3:23Just looking from the outside in, did you see a car that was horrible to drive?

3:28James Hinchcliffe:No, I didn't see that, but I certainly know the feeling. It's a bizarre one because you would think a quick car is a comfortable car, but that's often not the case. Just because something is fast, I mean, I think that's actually where Max excels, right? I mean, often when the Red Bull was the fastest was when other drivers couldn't even get a lap time out of it. So sometimes a quick car is actually quite an uncomfortable car to drive. And conditions today were very tough. The wind was very gusty and I think a bit stronger, certainly at the start of the race than what we had seen most of the weekend.

3:58James Hinchcliffe:But ultimately, it was still better than the other cars, right? So even if he was a bit uncomfortable, imagine how uncomfortable Williams was. Other thing Lando said, let's bear in mind, you know, he won the Grand Prix by 15 seconds. He said, I am doing a better job this year compared to last year when I won the World Championship. For 40 laps, I was able to sit within a second of Oscar Piastri, my teammate, and I just knew I was going to win this race. Are you surprised to hear him say that? Surprised that he is doing a better job? Honestly, no, because I think getting through 2025, surviving 2025, coming out on top in 2025, five that's an incredible experience for a driver to have that's that's now experience in the locker right so you should be a better driver the next year um and and because he doesn't have that pressure that that cloud hanging over his head of will he ever win a championship he's got that in his back pocket he can drive a bit more free i think he's i think he handles the pressure a little bit differently now and so no it doesn't surprise me that he feels like he's driving better And honestly, that was as good a drive as we've, I think, ever seen out of him.

5:07James Hinchcliffe:And he said it. The gap that he was able to keep to Oscar for as many laps as he was, he didn't fry. He still had pace in hand. It's not like he was frying the tires to do it. And once he got that clean air, you know, in the second round of stops, on old tires, he was running almost as quick as Piastri on brand new. So, yeah, it was a really sublime performance. Hinch, you haven't been at a race, all right, for a while. Do you think there's a swagger about Lando outside the car now? Do you see any change in him? You could call it swagger. I just see it more as a confidence. It's a comfort, maybe.

5:43James Hinchcliffe:More comfortable in himself, more comfortable in his position in this paddock and his place in this sport. And I think winning a championship, that's a normal reaction. That's something that you get when you've checked that box. I mean, that's what all these drivers went to bed at night as kids, dreaming about accomplishing. and he did it. He did it in a straight-up fight and it wasn't easy and he survived some difficult days to do it. So, yeah, I think he's got a different belief in himself and a different confidence. But I think that's helping him deal with some of these early races where the McLaren wasn't always competitive and they're not dominating the way they have been the last two years.

6:21James Hinchcliffe:That can be frustrating for a driver, but I think he's handling it very well because of that confidence he's gained from last year. And what do you make of the gap between Lando and teammate Oscar Piastri? It's interesting because at the start of the season, obviously Piastri had two DNS's, right? And then first time he actually got going, finished on the podium in Japan. I would say for the first few races, it actually looked like Oscar was getting a better handle on the new car than Lando was. And at some point, and I'm trying to think back as to when, maybe it's Miami's because that's always a great place for him.

6:55James Hinchcliffe:but it sort of shifted back towards Lando and they haven't been fighting for the win they haven't been fighting for podiums that often and so you sometimes lose track of those those battles for fifth sixth seventh right I feel like we overlooked a lot of really good drives from George Russell last year because he was finishing fifth but it was a blinder of a drive in a car that shouldn't have been fifth I feel like Oscar and Lando have kind of been having that sort of battle between between each other and it has gone lando's way the last few races and it's it's it's tough to put a finger on why why is you know george a little bit behind kimmy why is it look like charl maybe a bit behind lewis right now it's new car new race andrea stella team principal here i say here because we're actually in the mclaren motorhome but stella said i think it was on saturday that maybe the difference is that when a car is moving around underneath you as a driver lando is able to deal with that better than oscar and we have kind of seen that in the past like take mexico as an example high altitude race less downforce car does move even with the ground effect cars the car did move around a lot more and you know and lando invariably had the edge over him and of course we've got less downforce this year the cars are narrower is that it does that make sense to you it makes perfect sense you know we talked about how oscar would excel in the high grip situations places like Qatar and Silverstone and Zanvoort, whereas Lando clearly had an advantage in any of the lower grip tracks or just lower grip conditions.

8:29James Hinchcliffe:2026 is a lower grip condition than 2025. Where that threshold is is impossible to know unless you're looking at the data, right, in terms of at what downforce level does Oscar start having a harder time finding the lap time than if it was above a certain downforce number. But yeah, it makes perfect sense to me that the way the cars move and having less downforce, it might not even be a function of Oscar's natural style so much as it's the style that he's raced ever since he's been in Formula One, right? He came in with that ground effects car. Lando didn't. Lando's been through a couple generations now.

9:03James Hinchcliffe:But everything that Oscar knows about F1 was a ground effects car. And so it might just take him a little longer to kind of recalibrate and learn this new style. And let's not forget that Oscar Piastri won the Formula 2 championship at the first time of asking. He won the Formula 3 championship at the first time of asking. Those cars have a lot less downforce than Formula 1. So it's not like he can't do it. Correct. It's just got to get his head around it. Absolutely. And I guess as these regulations get more mature and McLaren develop more and more and they put more downforce on the car, we should maybe see the gap between them reduce in the second half of the year.

9:41James Hinchcliffe:And it's even things like if you think back to last year, right, when Oscar seemed to have a bit of an advantage over Lando, and then there was a front suspension upgrade, right? There was a feeling that Lando was missing in the front of the car. They brought a suspension upgrade, and it wasn't a performance upgrade. It was a feeling upgrade. Lando kept it. Oscar didn't. But that was kind of a turning point. That helped Lando unlock what he needed in the car to get the best out of himself. we're one small adjustment away from oscar doing the same thing so your point about the car is still developing so much i think is very valid i don't think it's just a function of adding down force and it'll start ebbing more towards oscar i think there could be something that he a feeling that he needs from the car that the team still needs to figure out how to give him and we saw it at red bull just it's a slightly different example do you remember earlier in the year when they had to change something on the steering rack to give max a little bit more feel well max was the one who was more outspoken about it so it is tiny little nuances that isn't always downforce yeah we saw pole decided by one one hundredth of a second tiny nuances is the it's that that is the the the dna of this sport and i feel uh that mclaren are back in terms of they put upgrades on the car this weekend clearly they worked it took lando friday to get his head around them and then bam on saturday i don't think anyone topped him in any session practice or or qualifying So do you think it'll be track specific?

11:06Do you think when we go to Zanvoort in a month's time, McLaren will have this kind of pace relative to the opposition?

11:12James Hinchcliffe:It's interesting because Zanvoort, I feel like it's actually kind of similar to this track. It's a bit of a go-kart track in a way. Yeah, it's tight and twisty. There's not a lot of long straights. There's some fast corners and a little bit of elevation. It's got some similar traits, certainly. And Lando's always run very well at Zanvoort as well. so I don't know if we'll actually be able to judge it even in the next race because this one is absolutely one of Lando's standout tracks. Always run well here. I think last year was the first time he'd been outqualified by a teammate and that was by a hundredth of a second and ultimately still won the race.

11:45But I think that they've clearly added performance to this car

11:50James Hinchcliffe:and I think one of the big things too is, you know, they've had the same power unit in the back as Mercedes but there's been a clear deficit in the straights. I think they're getting better at figuring out how to utilize the PU and how to maximize the potential there. And I'm seeing that deficit shrink. And when you look at the GPS traces from a cornering standpoint, yeah, they've built a very good car. They have upgraded it to a very good car. And if they can start matching Mercedes on the power unit deployment side, yeah, it very much could potentially not just be a Hungary and Zanvor type of.

12:24James Hinchcliffe:It could be quick at Baku and strong at Monza as well. So we'll see. He's now 91 points behind Kimi Antonelli, who's at the top of the table. What do you think he's thinking as he sits on the beach for the next couple of weeks? Doable or is Antonelli too far ahead? I think the best strategy is to not think about it, right? Because it is such a long shot. And we saw Max and what he did last year, certainly. But the best approach is just, it sounds sort of cliche, but you take each race one at a time and it doesn't really matter where he is in the championship you just got to go out and try and win them all and if we get to a point where by you know austin by brazil he's clawed back enough points you can you can count him in the fight then maybe the mentality switches a bit but for right now i think it's enjoy yourself you know and enjoy the enjoy this new car keep pushing the team let the team keep pushing you and see where you guys can go with it.

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16:28Let's bring it on to Red Bull now. Max Verstappen told us earlier that he spent the whole of the final lap of this Grand Prix working out how he'd got there, how he'd got this P2 because he said the pace of the car just hasn't been there all weekend he thinks it's been one of his best drives to get that P2 and there was a superb move on Lewis Hamilton as well on lap 16 which we'll come to but I feel Max is going to reflect not only on this race but this first half of the season with a little bit of frustration? I think it's more than a little, to be fair.

17:06James Hinchcliffe:I mean, you know, the very public issues with the rear wing and the accidents that those have cost, you know, that's been frustrating for them. We hear them on the radio all the time, upset about shifting and car balance. And, you know, he said things today like the aerodynamics are broken and we don't have tire degradation, we have car degradation. I don't even know what that means. Like, that's how bad it is. There are terms they're making up for how bad he feels that car is. And how often have we seen Max Verstappen spin in a qualifying session, for goodness sake? Today, I mean, you know, I spoke to him in Park for May.

17:37James Hinchcliffe:Max is here to win. That's one of the happiest I've seen Max with a second place. He even was kind of looking around like, I don't know how I'm here. I genuinely don't know how he did this. He did that Max thing that we've come to know him capable of doing by getting in front of the Ferraris, by keeping them behind him, which was incredible when he lost out to Lewis in the pit cycle with the undercut to actually get that move done on track and then keep him behind again. That was a remarkable drive, and you could tell it took a lot out of him. That was not an easy day. What did you make of that move on Hamilton?

18:13Verstappen from nowhere from Milesburg. What a move from the four-time champ. Hamilton cleared Lawson. Verstappen cleared Lawson, and then Hamilton.

18:24James Hinchcliffe:how did he stop that car brilliant i think i think potentially hamilton didn't even really acknowledge him as a threat because you had the racing bulls there that was in between them briefly and so sort of was like oh well he's busy racing him this is my chance to focus on getting a good exit out of turn one and try to open that gap so maybe he was even a little gentler on entry because he didn't think he was under threat, but it was just so beautifully done. It was completely controlled, no lockup. I mean, it was incredible. And that's against Hamilton, who had been dominant on the brakes. The big brake zones here this weekend in Turn 1 and Turn 12, that's where he was making up a majority of his lap time.

19:07James Hinchcliffe:So against the strongest guy on the brakes this weekend, he pulled off that move in a car that you can't argue was in the same league as the Ferrari. How long does that stay with a driver? Do you think Lewis will be sitting on his plane home tonight being eaten up by what happened? Yeah. And particularly by Max. Yeah, that doesn't help. It can't make it better, that's for sure. And unfortunately, he has several weeks before he gets to get back in a race car and forget about it. But you have to eventually just kind of learn from it and push those things aside. But he'll be thinking about it for sure.

19:41Quick word on Hadjo. Scores points for the seventh race in a row. the day after Laurent Macchier, his boss, said, yes, he is definitely the best partner for Max we've had certainly in recent years. I feel like he's on a roll. He's growing in confidence, getting more impressive by the race.

20:00James Hinchcliffe:Yeah, I mean, I think he's been impressive for quite some time. He's certainly kept his streak alive of being in Q3 at every race so far this year. Not something Max has done, so let's put it that way. Like you say, the point scoring finishes are there. That's something that they've been struggling with on that second car. But you look at a weekend like this where, you know, the car is a handful and the race is going to be a tough one to manage. And Max just is able to put it in a podium position and his teammates not. Not that Hadjar is doing a bad job at all. He's doing a phenomenal job. But it just shows you what Max is capable of, even against the best number two they've had for half a decade.

20:40James Hinchcliffe:Tell me more about the Max factor, right? Is it just consistency or is there more to it than that? Is it an ability to read the race better than the people around you on the racetrack? It's an ability to read the race. It's a situational awareness. It's an ability to adapt to the car. He came on the radio on lap five or something and said, I think the damping's gone. I think the dampers are broken. And he just drives through it. Whatever was wrong with the car, he finds a way to drive around it. it's a very difficult skill for a driver. It's, it's, you know, it's one that people talk about, Oh yeah, there's so-and-so driver is very good at, you know, if it's got a bit of understeer, they can still drive it a bit of oversteer.

21:22James Hinchcliffe:They can still drive it. Um, you know, we know max hates understeer, but when there's even just a more fundamental flaw with the car, he's still going to get everything. And then some out of the package. And it's, it's not something that you see. I think the consistency is in how he can do that. You know, when the car is, especially when it's below average, how he's still able consistently to put it up further up the grid than it should be and finishing further in the races than it should and gp his race engineer was glowing in his praise over the radio on the slowdown lap and he's not like that after every podium is he and it's like i said i mean when when max came to park for may he was like legitimately happy to be there which he never is unless he's winning so i think the whole team there the week they've had a horrible weekend right both drivers spun in qualifying max has been you know complaining like we said up shifts down shifts aero balance whatever so they were they were kind of just in a survival mode it felt like and then all of a sudden they're in the they're in the fight for for a podium spot three podiums in the last four races so you know when you look at on paper you'd think oh red bull are making progress but then you actually look at the gaps and you look at where they are relative to McLaren this weekend and then it doesn't tell the full story does it it's the fourth fastest car today and they finished second created Oscar had a problem but he was still going to be on the podium he was still going to be third wild wild a thing with the fourth fastest car they just they just outraced them what about the championship leaders constructors and driver let's start with Kimi Antonelli scores a podium from seventh on the grid yes okay he was helped by Oscar Piastri's retirement but what i liked about this was that this was never a race he was going to win from p7 yeah in it we talk about max factor a little bit of kimmy factor he still extracted the most and look what happened to his teammate and we'll come on to his teammate but a massive golf super impressive and and this has really kind of been the story of kimmy's season is for me is young kid one year of experience nobody pegged him as as ready to take the fight to george be the i don't want to say the number one driver i don't think they're looking at them as number one or number two or anything like that but consistently be the quickest but he's got to go through all these things right that that drivers do in their careers that you don't experience just in year one and all these different scenarios that have been thrown at him that he's experienced for the first time at the front of the grid with that kind of pressure and that kind of attention while leading the championship every single one of them he has navigated flawlessly we haven't seen any of the silly mistakes we haven't seen him buckle under any kind of pressure we've seen him win driving away we've seen him win with you know being being caught and having someone run in his gearbox tracks where they weren't expecting to do well monaco he goes and chucks it on pole wins the race by a mile and then here very difficult situation they weren't the fastest car for probably the first time you know this uh this season has the penalty tries to pull a george in qualifying doesn't work out has the penalty starts further back and in a in a race and at a track that you're not supposed to really move up you're not expected to move up they did what you had to do which was something different right they were it looked like going for the one stop at one point and even when they called him in for that second stop he was like why i'm in p2 we can do this let's just keep let's just keep rolling would have been interesting to see if they had done that waited for the v not waited for the vsc he didn't know it was coming but had they committed to the one stop they would have got that free stop with the vsc and he would have finished ahead of max would have been p2 he still finished ahead of the second in the championship this was a phenomenal phenomenal day for kimmy and again it's another example of every new situation with that level of pressure that he's being you know put into he's handling it very well had he started further up the grid do you think lando could have been in his sights i mean you say not the fastest car this weekend but we kind of didn't really see him flat chat there was you know there was the issue in qualifying and then the race you're all there's so many compromises in the race aren't there yeah especially especially when you're going long in the way that he did right that that stint he was on so it's it's tough to know exactly yeah what the true race pace was but Lando was so quick I would find it a little hard to believe he had that kind of pace in the bag had he been on the same strategy and similar track position as Lando that said I didn't think he was going to have the kind of pace in the race in Monaco that he did so it certainly is possible I mean he's now 50 points ahead of the second place driver in the world championship 59 ahead of his teammate I mean he's going to be sitting on the beach in this break thinking, pinching himself, actually.

26:12James Hinchcliffe:Yeah, I mean, I was talking to him afterwards. I was like, did you ever think that at the halfway point of the season you'd have two Grand Prix in the bag, like in hand, in the championship? And, you know, he was a sweet, humble kid. He gives you the answer you'd think he would give you. But there's just no way, there's no way he ever would have thought at the start of the season in Barcelona at the shakedown that this was where he'd be sitting, you know, six months down the road. even inch fp3 in melbourne yeah remember he crashed at turn one there like the journey is so spectacular yeah same old kimmy right like guys gonna have those rookie errors and then you know look what he's look what he's done it's it has been it's been truly spectacular and what if george russell starts p6 goes into anti-stool and you just that guy just cannot get a break he can't and it's and it's kind of uh joined with the fact that he also just doesn't have the pace he wasn't there this weekend you think it spirals because you don't have the pace sometimes you then i'm not saying that's what happened on the grid but it does often spiral doesn't it we're at the point now and on this show julian and i bet the house on george and after the first every the first five six we probably made five six races making excuses and that yeah Yeah, but I'm out.

27:30James Hinchcliffe:I'm out of things to say. At this point, if it were me in my career and I had come in with the sort of expectation around my season that George did and we were at the halfway point and I was at the place that George is at, my reaction would be like, all right, it's gone. Let's not worry about it. Let's not think about it. Kind of go into the mindset that we were just talking about for Lando at this point. Is that self-preservation as much as anything? Otherwise you'd go mad? I think that's part of it, certainly. But I genuinely believe that in those scenarios, if you're not embroiled in a very tight, intense battle for the championship, the lead's going back and forth week in and week out, I do think that drivers can overthink things.

28:15James Hinchcliffe:I think you can get in your own head pretty easily. And I do think that, certainly for me, I performed better when I was a little bit freer and kind of was able to let things, you know, not really think. But doesn't everyone hinge? I think some people really perform well under pressure and some people really perform well when they're free. I think that's kind of what we're seeing at Orlando. I think he's a bit freer this year and that's why he's driving in his words better than he ever has. George came in with a lot of pressure, a lot of expectation and expectation is a dangerous thing. And if you can just get rid of that now, and I'm not saying concede that Kimmy's better, but concede that Kimmy's having a better year this year and that I've had X, Y, Z work against me.

28:52James Hinchcliffe:and so this is the position I'm in and kind of give it like a screw it sort of attitude. It just frees you up. And in my career, when I had moments like that, that immediately could, it could turn things around so quickly. If you start overthinking how to fix things that were ultimately out of his control, there are some things that are in his control that maybe could be worked on, but whether it's this coating in the engine that they found, or you've got the water issue here, the water pump issue all the other issues that he's had you have to kind of just say screw it i'm just gonna show up i'm just gonna go race i don't care about the championship i don't care about my teammate i don't care about anything it's me and my car my team i'm just gonna go race how do you think his side of the garage is reacting because there's there's that pendulum isn't there where of course you're getting the same kit but just the the emotional support just starts to go the other way when it's not happening for you yeah it's this is this is it's a different world i mean you know i never raced here i i never had to uh racing's racing though it is teams are sports teams true and and this is this is what's so challenging about motorsports right is it's one team you know one team one dream but there are two cars and there are two crews and there are certain things that you only do on george's car or certain things that you only do on kimmy's car it's a it's a healthy internal competition but there is still some of that internal competition i think here more than anywhere um and so i i just don't know i i feel like total wolf runs a an organization that tries very hard to keep all of that stuff buttoned up and keep it as as as clean and even and uh you know equitable between the two sides of the garage and when one's others having more luck or just doing better there are things you can do and ways you can kind of keep the other side of the garage meshed with you know one side of the garage mesh with the other side and and kind of just keep you know the team morale up and team focused on on making the whole team better so for george we've now got four weeks off your advice to him i mean is it an opportunity to pour through the data that you don't have time to when you're busy racing six races in seven weeks blah blah blah or actually is it go to the beach completely switch off what is the better tactic for him going into the second half of the season so i think that uh i think that things you know marinate in a driver's brain with time and so if there are things that the team has determined george needs to work on and i'm talking very high level so let them pour through the data let them identify three things that you want to work on as as george think about them for the next couple days and then go go do your two weeks in barbados on the beach without really thinking about it you know it because you've been told it and you kind of just let it sit there in the back of your head go enjoy yourself go rest go relax go recharge you sleep on it and it just sort of naturally embeds itself to a certain extent and then yeah you you come back and you have your few days of prep and and off to the end of where we go now we discussed earlier Lando being 91 points behind Kimi Antonelli or is it doable is it not 59 points which is the gap between George and his teammate is still very much game on if he gets the rub of the green isn't it oh yeah absolutely but again I think if you focus on it it's actually to your detriment at this point and and it's partly because Kimmy's just on such a roll, right?