Lando Norris held off his McLaren team-mate and title rival Oscar Piastri in a thrilling finale to claim a stunning Hungarian Grand Prix victory.

After a nightmare start which saw Norris drop from third on the grid to fifth on the opening lap, McLaren switched the Brit to a one-stop strategy that saw him gain track position over two-stopping pole-sitter Charles Leclerc and Piastri.

Piastri eased past Ferrari’s Leclerc after their second stops and closed in on Norris in the final stages, but failed to pass his team-mate as a big lock-up from the Australian almost resulted in the pair colliding on the penultimate lap.

The result reduces Piastri’s Drivers’ Championship lead to nine points going into Formula 1’s summer break, with what appears to be a two-horse race for the title set to play out over the remaining 10 of the season’s 24 rounds.

Norris said: “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.

“The final stint with Oscar catching I was pushing flat out. Rewarding even more because of that. The perfect result today.”

Mercedes’ George Russell completed the podium following a late pass on a frustrated Leclerc, who received a meaningless five-second time penalty for his overzealous defence after Ferrari’s strong early-race pace completely evaded him on the final stint.

Fernando Alonso took fifth to claim Aston Martin’s highest finish of the season, with his team-mate Lance Stroll backing up the result in seventh.

Brazilian rookie Gabriel Bortoleto delivered the best result of his debut campaign in sixth, extending Sauber’s impressive streak of points-scoring races to six.

Max Verstappen finished ninth after a tough weekend for Red Bull but faces a post-race investigation for a pass on Lewis Hamilton, which forced the Ferrari off track.

Verstappen, the nearest challenger to the McLarens in the drivers’ standings, saw his deficit to Piastri increase to 97 points.

Hamilton finished where he started in 12th, enduring a frustrating afternoon after declaring himself “useless” following a disappointing qualifying performance on Saturday.

Liam Lawson maintained his strong form by finishing ahead of Verstappen for Racing Bulls in eighth, meaning Red Bull were outperformed by their junior squad.

Kimi Antonelli claimed the final point in 10th for Mercedes to end a streak of three races for the 18-year-old Italian rookie without scoring.

How early error put Norris on path to victory

With Leclerc having stunned McLaren by taking a completely unexpected pole on Saturday, there was little doubt that Piastri and Norris, starting from second and third respectively, would be more focused on each other than the Ferrari at the first corner.

While Leclerc pulled clear off the line, Norris got a better launch than Piastri and saw an opportunity to dive up the inside at the first corner.

He paid a big price as Piastri was able to fend off the move and then pin Norris on the inside, which allowed Russell and then Alonso to pass the Brit around the outside.

Norris was quickly able to recover fourth from Alonso on lap three, but couldn’t repeat the trick when he closed up to Russell soon after.

Despite the cool conditions, a two-stop strategy appeared the obvious strategy and Piastri committed to it when he pitted at the end of lap 18 for an attempted undercut on Leclerc.

It proved unsuccessful when Leclerc comfortably remained ahead as Ferrari responded by bringing him in a lap later.

Piastri later reflected: “I don’t know if trying to undercut Leclerc was the right call in the end. We can go through it after.”

Knowing a two-stop would condemn Norris to finishing behind Piastri, his side of the garage switched him to a one-stopper, which saw him continue on his medium tyres before switching them for hards after 31 laps of the 70-lap race.

As Norris delivered impressive pace on his new tyres and quickly reduced his deficit to Leclerc and Piastri to less than a pit stop, it became clear that he would gain track position over them.

“I didn’t think it would get us the win, I thought it would get us maybe into second,” Norris said of his strategy. “I knew if I had clean air and could push I could maybe make things work and that’s what we did.

“It always is a bit of a gamble these kind of things. It also requires no mistakes, good laps, good strategy and that’s what we had today.”

Piastri was asked at this point whether he wanted to prioritise beating Leclerc or Norris, and unsurprisingly made clear he was focused on the latter.

That saw McLaren delay Piastri’s second stop to create a 14-lap tyre freshness advantage over Norris, setting up what appeared to be a tantalising three-way race to the finish.

Piastri’s quest was aided by Leclerc’s sudden loss of pace, which enabled him to ease past the Ferrari shortly after making his second stop, leaving him free to chase Norris.

He made it into DRS range with five laps remaining, and looked well set for victory as he measured a possible overtake up the inside.

However, Norris kept his cool brilliantly on his aged tyres to force an error from Piastri, who locked up as he attempted to dive up the inside at the start of the penultimate lap.

The Australian received a reminder over the radio of the key principle of McLaren’s ‘papaya rules’, which is ensuring the avoidance of contact between their drivers, which already happened once this season when Norris caused a collision in Canada.

Piastri opted not to take a similar risk on the final circuit, leaving Norris to take the chequered flag just six tenths of a second clear of his team-mate, capping perhaps the finest of his nine career grand prix victories.

“I pushed as hard as I could,” Piastri said. “After I saw Lando going for a one-stop, I knew I was going to have to overtake on track, which is much easier said than done around here.

“It was a gamble either way. Today, unfortunately, we were just on the wrong side of it.

Since the collision in Canada, which resulted in Norris failing to finish the race, he has won three of the final four races before the summer break to reignite a title battle that appeared to be slipping away from him.

Formula 1 returns after the summer break with the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort on August 29-31, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime