Track Interviews - Conducted by James Hinchcliffe

And for the ninth time in his career, Lando Norris is your winner here in Hungary. Lando, just talk to us about that last stint, battling with Oscar Piastri, your teammate. It came so close there but you held him off.
Lando Norris: Yeah. I'm dead. It was tough. We weren't really planning on the one-stop at the beginning but after the first lap it was kind of our only option to get back into things. It was tough. The final stint with Oscar catching, I was pushing flat out. My voice has gone a little bit. Pretty good, rewarding even more because of that, but the perfect result today.

You mentioned how it wasn't the original plan, but after that first lap, you fell back to fifth. When they came on the radio and said, "Hey, what do you think about a one-stop?" you almost sounded indifferent. You said, "Yeah, sure, let's give it a try." At what point did it really start feeling like you could pull off this win?
LN: I mean, I didn't think it would probably get us the win. I thought maybe it would get us at least into second. I knew our pace was good, even in the first stint behind George. I couldn't get past, but the pace was strong. So, I knew if I just had some clean air and I could push that I could maybe make things work, and that's what we did. It's always a bit of a gamble, these kinds of things, but it also requires no mistakes, good laps, good strategy, all these things. And that's what we had today. So, I'm very happy.

You've managed to close the championship gap down a little bit heading into that summer break. How much of a relief is it now to take this time off knowing that momentum is kind of on your side right now?
LN: I think it's so tightly fought, it's hard to say if momentum's on anyone's side, but we're fighting hard. It's fun. It's tough but fun racing against Oscar and great for us as a team. Another one-two. Our 200th win actually in Formula 1. Credit to Oscar, he put up a good charge and I just about held on. I look forward to plenty more of these.

Marvellous final stint. Congratulations on the win.
LN: Thank you so much.

Alright, Oscar. I know no driver likes coming second place in a race. You came from 12 seconds back after that second stop. Just walk us through that final stint, tracking down Lando, and then ultimately that attempt with two to go down to turn one.
Oscar Piastri: Yeah. I pushed as hard as I could. I think 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. Tried a few things. It was a gamble either way and today, unfortunately, we were just on the wrong side of it. The team did a great job. The car really came alive in the second half of the race and has been great all weekend. So, thank you to the team and looking forward to a couple weeks off.

Were you surprised when you got the call from the team that Lando would switch to the one-stop?
OP: Yes and no. At that point, he didn't really have much to lose, so it wasn't a huge surprise. I don't know if trying to undercut Leclerc was the right call in the end, but we can go through it after.

Is it easy to look at it now and think maybe you tried that move in Turn 1 a lap too early? Or do you think you pulled it off with the best chance you could?
OP: I think I needed to be at least a couple of tenths closer, which was going to take a mistake from Lando to achieve that. I feel like that was going to be my best chance. You never want to try and save it for the next lap and then it never comes. So, I thought I would at least try and, yeah, not quite.

You got a smile on your face. Obviously, you still had some fun out there. Congratulations.
OP: Thank you.

George Russell coming home P3 today. George, I think after practice, you've got to say that it looked like Mercedes was third best team. So, are you pretty proud coming home with the podium today?
George Russell: Yeah. Really happy with the race today. Obviously, yesterday qualifying was a bit of a surprise. This whole weekend's been a bit surprising for everyone, but so happy to be back on the podium.

It was a bit dicey with Charles at some point. Walk us through that battle a little bit. We saw some close moments, some radio banter back and forth. How did you see it from your seat?
GR: It's one of those where you sort of commit to a bit of a dive bomb. If the driver in front moves, you're already right on the limit of grip and there's not much room for manoeuvre. I think we made contact on the second time, but just glad to get through it. Nice way to go into the break.

You guys came with a slightly different set-up on the car this weekend, kind of reverting back a little bit. It seems like it's trending the right direction. Does that give you hope into the summer break that you guys are getting back on pace?
GR: It's definitely better than the races we've had so far. So really pleased with that.

Press Conference

Oscar, if we could come to you first, very well done. That was a fighting second place. What's your overriding emotion after what is your 12th podium of the year?
OP: Mixed, I would say. You know, whenever you lose a race by such a little amount, it's obviously a bit painful, but I mean, I'm sure it was entertaining from the outside. It was entertaining from the inside as well. So, you know, pretty fun race, all things considered. But, obviously, when you're on the losing side of that battle, it's a little bit difficult. But, yeah, we tried our best, I think, and, you know, we got ahead of Charles. I don't know what happened to him in the last stint, but, yeah, some things to look back on, whether we should have done something a bit different in terms of strategy, but very easy to say in hindsight.

Can I take you back to that battle with Lando in those last five laps? First of all, I mean, given the tyre offset, how confident were you?
OP: I was confident, but I knew it was going to be still incredibly tough because getting close to the car ahead is one thing, but trying to overtake is a completely different story. I knew that I was catching him a lot when I had clean air, but as soon as I got close, it was incredibly tough to stay close enough. There are so many corners in the middle sector that in some cases it almost feels like you do a better job in some corners, and then you pay the price at the next one because you're even closer. That made it very tough. And then with such long corners to end the lap, it just kills any downforce you've got. So, I knew that was going to be incredibly tough. Even if I had more laps, I'm not sure the result would have been any different, but I certainly tried.

How much did the lock-up into Turn 1 prevent you having another go?
OP: Not that much, I don't think. I was able to close the gap again pretty quickly for the last lap. But it's kind of like I said, getting to within six or seven tenths was doable, but to then get even closer than that, I think I needed brand new Softs to be able to do much from that point. So, yeah, it was always going to be tough when I got close. But, I mean, you never want to not take an opportunity that you think is there in case another one never comes up. So, I had to go for it and, you know, in hindsight, obviously you can say maybe I should have waited another lap, but I'm pretty convinced that even if I had waited one more lap, it wouldn't have changed anything.

Oscar, you said a moment ago some things you might have done differently. Do you wish you'd done a one-stop? Do you wish you hadn't tried to undercut Charles Leclerc? Can you just shed a bit of insight into that?
OP: I think we had to try and do something to beat Leclerc because it wasn't obvious that we just had enough pace to blow past him and go and win that way. So, we tried something. Was it the right thing in the end? I don't know. But it's always much easier when you're the car behind to take that risk. For Lando, there was virtually nothing to lose by trying a one-stop race. For myself, potentially there was. And, yeah, we'll look back and see if there was anything we should have done differently. But a two-stop was always the plan before the race, so it wasn't even really discussed that much about doing a one-stop. So, it was certainly a gamble.

George, we'll come to you now. Well done to you as well. Very tenacious race. What does this one mean to you?
GR: Yeah, it's good to be back on the podium. It's obviously been a challenging run of form for us as a team these last six or so races, so it's a great way to enter the break.

How do you explain the turnaround here at the Hungaroring?
GR: We reverted on some of the items we brought. Early in the season we brought a new rear suspension that clearly wasn't performing as we'd have hoped. But it was also a pretty unique weekend. You see the results by McLaren, and it was quite an unusual finishing order from P3 down. Obviously, Max was quite out of position. The Astons had a really strong race weekend as well. So, I don't think we should get carried away with the result. But, clearly, in terms of pace, it was our best race of the season bar Canada.

Can I ask you about your overtake on Charles Leclerc? You seemed outspoken and unhappy with the way he was defending. What did he do wrong in your eyes, and did he deserve a five-second penalty?
GR: You know, when you're coming down the straight at 330 and you sort of dive into the corner, you're right on the limit of your car's grip. You can't just brake and turn to avoid somebody because you're already at the limit of that grip. So, I made my intentions really clear, diving to the inside, and he moved after he had committed to braking, which is not allowed in the rules because of that reason. So, he did it once. I wasn't happy about it. Second time, I was like, well, I'm going to just send it down the inside now, and he did it again, and we made contact. I was glad to get by. But I think when you watch it on TV, you think, "Oh, why can't you just turn to avoid it?" But as I said, you are right on the limit of the car's potential.

Check out our Sunday gallery from the Hungaroring here.