Lando Norris Admits He Is ‘Pleasantly Surprised’ After Snatching Pole From Ferrari in Hungary

• Lando Norris claimed his first pole position of the 2026 season at the Hungarian Grand Prix, edging Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton by 0.012 seconds in a tense Q3 shootout.
• Norris admitted he was “pleasantly surprised” to beat Hamilton and Charles Leclerc after describing his own qualifying laps as “not the best.”
• The McLaren driver called his position at the front of the grid “new man’s land” and warned of a difficult fight against Ferrari and Mercedes on race day.

Lando Norris took his first pole position of the 2026 season at the Hungarian Grand Prix, pipping Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton by 0.012 seconds in a Q3 shootout at the Hungaroring on Saturday, the last qualifying session before Formula 1 breaks for its four-week summer shutdown.

Norris had topped the final practice session earlier in the day, and McLaren arrived in Budapest with a fresh upgrade package that appeared to give the car a step forward around the tight, twisty circuit. Hamilton set the pace after the opening runs in Q3, but neither he nor Ferrari team mate Charles Leclerc could improve on their second attempts, leaving Norris to steal the top spot with his final lap.

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The result capped a weekend McLaren badly needed. Championship leader Kimi Antonelli had arrived in Hungary fresh off a win in Belgium the previous round, while Norris and Piastri had not tasted victory in the eight months that had passed after Brazil.

“I’m very, very happy, very happy to be back on top,” Norris said. “A tough, tough Quali. Obviously these guys here were very quick. It’s been pretty tight the whole weekend.”

He credited the upgrades McLaren brought to Hungary for the pace that carried him to pole. “We’ve seemed quick from the first laps that we did. We brought a few upgrades, and it’s hard to know how much it helps in terms of lap time, but it certainly helped today,” he said. “I’m very, very happy to be back on top, especially at a track where you want to be on pole.”

Caught Off Guard by His Own Pace

Norris was open about the fact that his own laps in the pole shootout had not felt like anything special, which made the result catch him off guard.

“Honestly, I had confidence the whole of today. My laps in Q3 were not the best, even the one at the end, so I’m pleasantly surprised to be on top,” he said. “We’ve been doing a good job, the car’s been feeling good, I’ve had good confidence. I certainly pushed it a little bit more on the last lap, some paid off, some didn’t, but the main thing is we did it in the end.”

He turned his praise toward the team behind the result. “I’m very, very pleased for the team, a big thanks to them for working so hard, and another big job tomorrow,” he said.

McLaren in ‘New Man’s Land’

The pole marks the first time McLaren have started from the front of a Sunday grid in 2026, a rare position for a team that has won both constructors’ titles in the previous two years but has managed only four podium finishes across the opening ten races of the new rules era.

Norris called the moment unfamiliar territory for his team. “We are in new man’s land. It’s our first time at the front, so we’ll see what we can learn as we go and how we can adapt. I expect a very tough race, but it’s not impossible,” he said.

He pointed back to the previous weekend at Spa-Francorchamps, where he started from a 10-place grid penalty for exceeding his power unit allocation but still showed strong pace, as evidence the upgrade had made a real difference. “If we just go back to Spa last weekend, like I said then, I thought I had good enough pace to certainly not be on pole, but certainly fight for a podium and potentially a win, just in terms of pace. I obviously didn’t, but the potential was there,” he said. “It’s nice to see that’s kind of carried over to this weekend.”

He added that turning that potential into a result on a Saturday had a knock-on effect on the wider team. “We brought some good upgrades, like I said, and that potential has turned into a result, which is always a very nice thing to see for the whole team and very good for the motivation and the atmosphere within the team. It’s rewarding to see work going in and rewards being taken out,” he said. “So, very pleased for all of them. But you can’t just rely on one good qualifying, so I need a good race.”

A Cautious Look at Sunday

Norris was reluctant to get carried away with the result heading into race day, stressing that a single strong qualifying lap counted for little against a full grand prix distance.

“Let’s just wait and see. I mean, it’s just qualifying. It’s a long race ahead, and it’s going to be a difficult one, so we’ll see,” he said.

Asked what it would take to convert pole into a first win of his title defense, he pointed to the threat still posed by Ferrari and Mercedes. “You still need good pace, good tyre management, a good start of course otherwise you learn on the go! You have to prepare well and we have very tough competition. The Mercedes and Ferrari’s race pace looked very good and they have been strong all year,” he said.

He also flagged an unknown that could shape the opening laps: the tyre choices his closest rivals made in Q1. “Obviously they did Q1 on the mediums, so it’ll be interesting to know what tyre they’re going to start on tomorrow. They may be in potentially a slightly better position with some things, but otherwise we did the job that we had to do today, so I’m pleased for that,” he said. “Tonight, we’ll make sure we prepare in the best way possible for tomorrow.”

With Hamilton demoted three places on the grid for impeding Oscar Piastri and championship leader Kimi Antonelli also dropping back after his own penalty for failing to slow for yellow flags, Norris starts Sunday’s race with a clearer track ahead of him than the timesheet alone suggested after Q3. The revised top ten reads: Norris, Leclerc, Piastri, Max Verstappen, Hamilton, George Russell, Antonelli, Isack Hadjar, Arvid Lindblad and Nico Hulkenberg.

McLaren have finished first and second in Hungary in each of the past two years, a run Norris and Piastri will want to extend even from a grid that no longer has both cars locked out at the front. Whether pole translates into the win his team have been chasing for eight months is a question Norris was careful not to answer in advance, choosing instead to point to the long, difficult afternoon still standing between his team and a first victory of the season.

The stakes reach beyond a single result. Norris and Piastri sit behind Antonelli in a title fight the young Mercedes driver has taken over in recent rounds, and a first win of the season on the last weekend before F1’s summer shutdown would give McLaren a result to carry into the break rather than a four-week wait to answer the question of whether their upgrade was a one-off in qualifying trim or a genuine step forward in race conditions.

Piastri, too, will start Sunday’s race with reason for encouragement after being promoted to third by the penalties handed to Hamilton and Antonelli, giving McLaren two cars inside the top three for the first time this season and a real chance of the kind of result that has eluded the team for eight months.

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Written by

Jack Renn

Jack Renn is an editor at F1 Chronicle and a veteran motorsport journalist with 25 years of experience covering Formula 1 and international motorsport. A member of the Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive (AIPS), the global body representing accredited sports journalists, Jack has spent his career reporting from paddocks and press rooms across the F1 calendar. His work spans race analysis, technical insight, and in-depth features, giving readers authoritative coverage grounded in decades of firsthand experience at the highest level of the sport.

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