Lando Norris absolutely schooled Oscar Piastri at the Hungarian Grand Prix, and former F1 driver Jolyon Palmer reckons the defending champion's performance was absolutely brutal to watch for the Australian. Norris took the victory on Sunday while Piastri's race ended in disappointment when a gearbox failure forced him to retire on Lap 56 of 70. But here's the thing, Norris had already done the damage well before that happened. The pace differential was so stark that Palmer used the word 'devastating' to describe how comprehensively Norris dominated his teammate once he got a clean track.

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Piastri actually started the race brilliantly, getting a cracking launch from third on the grid to dive past Charles Leclerc and then ambush Norris into Turn 2 with some late braking. The Australian was looking good with the lead in his hands. But when both drivers made their final pit stops and McLaren split their strategies, Norris showed exactly why he's the reigning champion. The Briton absolutely flew once he emerged with fresher rubber and had clear air in front of him. Palmer explains that Norris started cranking out laps more than one full second faster than Piastri managed on identical tyres. That's the kind of performance gap that tells you everything you need to know about who was the faster driver on the day.

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Palmer's analysis digs deeper into the technical side of things. Apparently Norris' driving style is just handling the 2026 regulations better than Piastri's approach. The reigning champion seems happier to let the car slide around a bit and rotate it earlier, which helps him nail those crucial slow-speed corner exits and generate better straight-line traction. Piastri, by contrast, hasn't quite got comfortable with how much the rear wants to move around, especially when grip is low. That's become a real problem for him on harder tyres, where the feeling of stability just isn't there.

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This gap between the teammates is becoming seriously worrying for Piastri's championship aspirations. At the summer break, Norris had stormed to a 7-4 advantage in qualifying head to heads, and in Sprint sessions the gap was even worse at 4-0 and 4-0 in results. Piastri hasn't even led in two of the last five races. The Australian knows he's got work to do, so he's planning to spend time in the McLaren simulator working on how to extract performance from the car when the rear's sliding around. It's clear Piastri's adapting to these new regulations has been way slower than Norris', and until he sorts that out, he's going to keep getting beaten by his teammate.

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