lando norris champagne celebrations hungary with mclaren fred vasseur in the circle (1)Fred Vasseur would not be drawn on whether McLaren’s Hungarian GP victory means Ferrari has to worry about McLaren in the second half of this season. Instead, the team principal says Ferrari is focused solely on itself and what it can do to find more performance from its SF-26. Fred Vasseur explains Ferrari’s focus after McLaren’s Hungarian GP win Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for news you can trust. Ferrari broke Mercedes’ dominance in the 2026 F1 championship when Lewis Hamilton ended his former team’s winning streak at round seven, the Barcelona Grand Prix. While by no means the end of Mercedes’ challenge, the Brackley squad has won just two of the last five Grands Prix, with Ferrari going on to claim a second victory before McLaren clinched its first win in Hungary. Lando Norris won the Budapest race from pole position, beating Max Verstappen and Kimi Antonelli to the chequered flag. Charles Leclerc and Hamilton were fourth and fifth on a day in which Ferrari didn’t get it right, but Ferrari was still in contention for a podium finish. Vasseur, though, would not be drawn when asked if McLaren had joined Mercedes and Ferrari in the fight at the sharp end of the grid. “I’m not asking myself this kind of question because each weekend the picture is different,” he told PlanetF1.com and other media. “You have to be focused on yourself, to try to bring performance to the car “But already between FP1 and FP2 you have a big swing of performance, and if you think about the balance, it’s interesting.” Vasseur claims Norris’ pace around the Hungaroring, a venue where he also won last year, contributed to McLaren’s victory. “What is clear is that Lando was very, very quick, much more than Oscar,” he said. “I thought when we were stuck behind Oscar, we were probably faster than him. Lando, when he was on his own, he was flying.” F1 2026: The season’s winners and losers Hungary marked the second time this season that both Ferrari and McLaren outscored Mercedes, having previously done so at the Barcelona Grand Prix. However, their deficits in the Constructors’ Championship were only marginally reduced, with Ferrari 72 points behind Mercedes and McLaren 159 points down. McLaren, though, doesn’t believe it is yet in a position to challenge Ferrari regularly, never mind Mercedes, with Ferrari’s chassis said to be the best on the grid. “I think Ferrari still have the best chassis in terms of gripping the corners,” said team principal Andrea Stella. “This is very apparent in braking, their performance in corner 1, in corner 12, when you brake and turn into low speed, is still a decent step ahead of everyone else. “We have been able to improve the car in the medium-high speed, where we are more comparable to Ferrari. But if you take corner 1, corner 12, we still lose a decent amount of time. “I have to say that, despite Hungary being dominated by the performance in the corners, we actually make some of our lap time difference to Ferrari in the straights. “We improved in some areas where we are now, here in Hungary at least, comparable to Ferrari, we need to improve further in low speed. Some of the performance came in the straights, which I think is the benefit of running the HPP power unit.” Additional reporting by Thomas Maher Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists. You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!
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