After its shock qualifying defeat, McLaren got back on top on race day in the Hungarian Grand Prix - but were its two Formula 1 title rival drivers the wrong way around?
And who else had most to rue or celebrate in their wake?
Here's our pick of the Hungary 2025 stars and flops:
Loser: Oscar Piastri - 2nd
Oscar Piastri can feel aggrieved that he outqualified his chief title rival, outraced him on the run down to Turn 1, put a Mercedes between himself and Lando Norris, and still came out in second place behind him.
But that’s all part of F1. McLaren didn’t deliberately give him the weaker strategy, and even Pirelli thinks Norris flying on the one-stop was the exception.
It wasn’t as if Piastri was completely powerless to win either, with a significant tyre advantage once he caught Norris in the closing laps. - Josh Suttill
Winner: Lando Norris - 1st
The deserving winner? It's hard to make a case that definitive. But a deserving winner? Norris undoubtedly fits this description.
Much has been made in the immediate aftermath of the Hungarian GP of Norris only being in position to switch to his race-winning one-stop strategy by virtue of his lowly position in the lead pack after a poor first lap.
The first part of that can't be denied, but how much fault Norris can really cop for being boxed in at Turn 1 is up for debate.
Once in the 'hunted' position, as Piastri closed in during the final stint, he didn't really put a foot wrong - and proved he can put up a fight.
And this was a strategy gamble that Norris had to buy into, too. That makes his victory all the more rewarding. - Jack Cozens
Loser: Ferrari - 4th & 12th
A fourth place is par for the course for the 2025 Ferrari, a car that won't be going into any museums any time soon - yet this looked as sour as a Charles Leclerc fourth place can get this season, given around 10 laps into the race he looked like he might have it won.
The race was probably lost twice from there - first when Norris found clean air and a possible one-stop, then more emphatically when Leclerc's Ferrari stopped working due to what the team described to him as a chassis issue.
The other chassis was presumably intact, but Lewis Hamilton's weekend was toast on Saturday already and didn't get any better here after he slipped back at the start on hard tyres.
His very gloomy demeanour was copy-paste from Saturday, though one sentence to Sky Sports rang a bit ominous: "There's a lot going on in the background that's not great." - Valentin Khorounzhiy
Winner: Aston Martin - 5th & 7th
Aston Martin squandered its previous double-top-10 start this season at Imola. A repeat never looked on the cards on Sunday.
Fernando Alonso was never going to keep Norris at bay (you don't need hindsight to figure that out) after getting ahead at the start, but even with a DRS train bottled up behind him thereafter his position felt unimpeachable. In both race stints he withstood some pressure then ultimately eased away, underlining the fact that the Aston Martin really was the fourth-fastest thing at the Hungaroring.
What's more, Lance Stroll was only a fraction behind all weekend. So while there was a marginally better result on the cards - as another of our 'winners' snuck between the two cars - this was a big statement from Aston Martin in the midfield fight.
Its biggest haul of the season (16 points) - its first in double-digits - is more evidence of momentum being on its side, and that its woes at Spa were an anomaly not the start of a trend. - JC
Loser: Red Bull - 9th & 17th
Nothing in the 70-Hungarian Grand Prix changed Max Verstappen’s Saturday verdict that the RB21 had “no grip” at the Hungaroring, and there is still no real answer as to why.
Verstappen says Red Bull has “ideas” while team boss Laurent Mekies is convinced it’s a one-off.
It was a painful one-off; regardless of which, you have to wonder if Verstappen’s finishing position would have been higher had he been at the wheel of the Racing Bulls instead.
As for Yuki Tsunoda, once again, his encouraging qualifying performance (he was only a tenth and a half slower than Verstappen in Q1) amounted to nothing in the race, with a clash with Nico Hulkenberg resulting in front wing damage that wrecked his already tricky day. - JS
Winner: Gabriel Bortoleto - 6th
Gabriel Bortoleto has some real momentum forming right now.
Not only has he got the legs on Sauber team-mate Hulkenberg in qualifying - and Hulkenberg's no slouch over one lap historically - but he's really started to translate that into race performances. That's his first back-to-back points finish in F1, and his third score in four grands prix.
But the thing that tops it all? The Aston Martin was the class of the midfield at the Hungaroring, so to split those cars with a Sauber was a big overachievement.
Bortoleto is really starting to make waves. - JC
Loser: Haas - 16th & DNF
“A weekend to forget” in the words of Esteban Ocon, who could only move from 17th to 16th in the race, while Ollie Bearman was frustrated by rear damage to his Haas.
It’s unclear exactly where Bearman picked up the damage - it wasn’t in the gravel-flicking incident that left Isack Hadjar in pain - but it ended his chances of scoring points regardless.
Haas's pace wasn’t as strong as it was at Silverstone and Spa, but a third consecutive grand prix no-score means it is in the worst points-scoring form of any team on the grid, even with its Belgium sprint haul. - JS
Winner: Mercedes - 3rd & 10th
George Russell cautioned after the race not to read too much into Hungaroring form, given the rest of the order behind McLaren was so mixed up, but at least Mercedes seems over the worst of its recent funk.
The upgraded rear suspension, revealed as troublesome, has been parked for good, and with cooler conditions on race day the 2025 Mercedes looked a genuine frontrunner again, even if McLaren remains in another stratosphere.
And while 10th on paper is nothing to write home about for rookie Kimi Antonelli, the single point feels like it weighs more than it would usually do - as Antonelli felt much more at ease with the car through the weekend and did a reasonable job in the race to fight off Hadjar and Hamilton and their considerably fresher tyres. - VK
Loser: Alpine - 18th & 19th
Pierre Gasly described his race in which he was classfied last (and team-mate Franco Colapinto was second-to-last) as "very good" and he wasn't necessarily being sarcastic - instead, it reflects the deficiencies of the A525 and the fact Gasly is increasingly open about the fact he has given up on this season.
Though in theory this wasn't the track to really punish Alpine's power deficiencies, it looked in trouble when Gasly fell out in Q1 on Saturday, then looked down and out when Colapinto went 14th-to-18th on the opening lap.
Colapinto's early-stopping strategy bore no fruit (not helped by that stop being slow) and Gasly's 10-second penalty for clashing with Carlos Sainz didn't help, but it hardly hurt - there was just nothing here.
The only silver lining for Alpine is that two teams looked largely as hopeless. And, OK, Williams is 50 points clear so might as well be 2004 Ferrari as far as Alpine is concerned, but Haas at 15 points ahead represents at least some semblance of a target. - VK
Winner: Liam Lawson - 8th
The first half of Liam Lawson’s first full-time F1 season has certainly ended a lot better than it started, with a strong run of three points finishes in the last four races.
This eighth place finish was the result of a solid one stop race in which he even kept Verstappen behind him in the latter stages of the race.
Lawson credited the Racing Bulls’ solid tyre usage for this, feeling like he had more pace than those around him by the end of the stints.
He reckons a better grid position could have allowed him to beat the midfield cars ahead (he started ninth), but it’s still four more points that brings his 2025 tally to a respectable 20, just two fewer than team-mate Hadjar - who he outperformed when it mattered this weekend, even if their underlying pace seemed similar. - JS
