Lando Norris took pole position at the Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying on July 25, beating Lewis Hamilton by 0.012 seconds for his first pole of the season [1, 2, 3]. Hamilton was initially second fastest but dropped to fifth on the grid after a three-place penalty for impeding Oscar Piastri during qualifying [2, 3, 4]. Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur accepted responsibility for the penalty, saying they failed to warn Hamilton in time [4]. Piastri said Hamilton did not look in his mirrors when the incident happened [2].

On race day, July 26, Norris converted his pole into victory, delivering McLaren's first win of the season [5, 6, 7, 8]. He said he was "very happy to be back on top" [2] and praised his team's upgraded car, calling it an "overachievement" given the surprise pace [3, 4, 8]. Max Verstappen finished second, with Kimi Antonelli third, maintaining his championship lead by 50 points over Hamilton after 11 rounds [5, 6, 8].

Hamilton finished fourth on track but was demoted to fifth by a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane [5, 6, 9]. He criticized Ferrari's pit stop strategy, saying, "I definitely don't think we should have taken a stop" and blamed the call's timing as he couldn't debate it before the pit lane [9]. Vasseur defended the strategy, saying it would have been unfair to ask Leclerc to increase the gap for Hamilton [9]. Hamilton lamented, "Sometimes you just can't catch a break" despite feeling strong throughout the weekend [4].

Oscar Piastri led much of the first half of the race but retired with a gearbox failure 14 laps from the end [5, 6, 8]. Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin made progress with a heavily upgraded car, advancing to Q2 for the first time this season and finishing 16th. Alonso said he felt "relieved a little bit" that the team addressed the car's weaknesses [10, 11, 1, 2].

Ferrari came into the weekend as favorites but struggled during the race. Vasseur acknowledged mistakes, including the penalty and race strategy errors [3, 9, 7, 12].

Before the Hungarian GP, Antonelli led Hamilton by 45 points after 10 rounds [10, 11, 2]. With the results, his advantage increased to 50 points [5, 6, 8].

Practice sessions on July 24 saw Charles Leclerc fastest, followed by Verstappen and Hamilton. Norris topped the final practice on July 25 before taking pole later that day [10, 11, 1, 2, 3, 4].