Hungarian Grand Prix: Lando Norris and McLaren are perfect as Ferrari floats.

Lando Norris has described his first half of the Formula 1 season as “one of my best performances” after winning the Hungarian Grand Prix.

It was a long drive for the reigning world champion and McLaren team after a difficult start to the season.

But when McLaren finally gave him the performance level car he’s become accustomed to over the past season and a half, he’s more than used to it.

Norris and McLaren were almost perfect, with pre-race favorites Ferrari working through what team boss Frederic Vasseur said were “too many mistakes”.

Even at the start of Kimi Antonelli’s season for Mercedes, this was one of the most impressive and convincing victories of the season.

Norris’ one mistake was in the first round. He changed pole position into the lead into the first corner and, anticipating the pressure at turn two, slid wide and handed the position to teammate Oscar Piastri.

It looked like a mistake that would be fatal to his hopes of victory on a track where it was almost impossible to get equal outings between cars with similar tactics, but Norris remained calm.

Seeing how easy it is to keep up with Piastre, even in dirty air, I believe that the victory is always there.

“It wasn’t my best turn two,” Norris said, “but after that I saw what my speed was like and I was better in every way, in terms of shame and speed, I was confident that I could still win the race.”

Falling into a trap, Norris begged for a different strategy to give himself a chance at victory, and finally the circumstances presented him.

About halfway through. McLaren has stopped to get new tires to cover Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari, hiding the piastre. That gave Norris a breath of fresh air and set a blistering pace.

Piastre might still have held the lead, but for a collision with Carlos Sainz as he lapped Williams. The Australian was furious a few laps later when Norris took the lead from the pit stop – but at the Spaniard, not the McLaren.

“Being able to follow Oscar like that where it’s impossible to follow and pass, I was within 0.8 seconds or something of, I don’t know, about 40 laps. Being able to do that gave me confidence that I was going to win the race no matter what, whether it was early or late or whatever.”

“The speed advantage I had today was huge. But I don’t know why. The cars are the same, and I’ve been feeling really strong lately.

“Since last year, I’ve worked on a lot of places. I feel confident about how I’m going to perform recently, and I’ve worked a lot with my engineers to understand this car because it’s definitely not an easy car to understand and how to drive consistently at the limit.

“So why? Just hard work. Working hard with my engineers and myself to improve as a driver and improve my driving. That’s the answer.”