Norris: It's tough but fun racing against Oscar

The British racer has closed the gap to his McLaren teammate in the Formula 1 Drivers' Standings to just nine points after his victory at the Hungaroring. It was a hard-fought win that saw Norris cross the line just 0.698 seconds ahead of the second-placed driver.

A P1 finish looked unlikely for the 25-year-old after the opening lap after he lost places to the Mercedes of George Russell and Fernando Alonso's Aston Martin in the first few corners, falling to fifth. But things picked up from that point onwards.

Norris swiftly dispatched Alonso a couple laps later, and closed in on the gearbox of Russell in third. Unable to get past the Mercedes driver, he opted to extend his opening stint on the Medium tyre, eventually pitting on lap 32 from the lead.

When the rest of his closest competitors came in for a second time, Norris found himself at the head of the field once again. Despite having much older tyres than those behind, he managed to fend off a charging Piastri, who launched an attack up the inside of Turn 1 on the penultimate lap, to win in Hungary.

The one-stop strategy was the key to Norris' success. He expanded on this when speaking to media after the race.

Norris was understandably exhausted after the 70-lap event, having put in maximum effort in his bid to stay ahead of his teammate.

"I'm dead. I'm dead. It was tough," he exclaimed. "We weren't really planning on the one-stop but after the first lap it was kind of our only option to get back into things.

"The final stint with Oscar catching I was pushing flat out. Rewarding even more because of that. The perfect result today," stated Norris.

When asked if the one-stop strategy was an important factor in his race win, Norris revealed that he was surprised that it helped him climb all the way to the top step of the podium.

He continued: "I didn't think it would get us the win, I thought it would get us maybe into second. I knew if I had clean air and could push I could maybe make things work and that's what we did.

"It always is a bit of a gamble these kind of things. It also requires no mistakes, good laps, good strategy and that's what we had today," added the Briton.

Norris was keen to stress that despite gaining the upper hand on Piastri this time round, the pair remain evenly matched heading into the summer break.

He stated: "We're so tightly fought it's hard to say if momentum is on anyone's side. It's tough but fun racing against Oscar.

"Credit to Oscar he put up a good charge and I just about held on," Norris concluded.

The next Grand Prix takes places in The Netherlands, and will commence on Sunday 31 August at 14:00 BST (15:00 local time).