David Coulthard slams F1 drivers’ ‘kindergarten’ blue flag excuses after Hungary chaos

David Coulthard has slammed the “kindergarten” behaviour of Formula 1 drivers after several blamed a blue-flag system failure for ignoring lapping traffic during the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Although Oscar Piastri’s clash with Carlos Sainz and Kimi Antonelli’s traffic issues as he tried to keep Lewis Hamilton at bay made the headlines, it was an issue that hampered many drivers at the Hungaroring.

David Coulthard criticises Formula 1 drivers over Hungarian Grand Prix blue flags

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A system fault at the Hungaroring meant lapped cars were only shown manual blue flags, or light panels, with nothing appearing on the car’s dash.

Instead, the drivers had to rely on their engineers, but that went horribly wrong. “Teletubbies” level of wrong, if you ask Toto Wolff.

Speaking to Sky F1 after the Grand Prix, where Antonelli had to fight his way through backmarkers as he tried to hold onto the final podium position ahead of Hamilton, the Mercedes team principal called out rival teams’ race engineers.

“Cars at the back defending on the Lewis and Kimi fight, it’s just disgraceful from some of the Teletubbies engineers that sit on the pit walls of these teams not telling the drivers what is happening behind,” he decried. “I’m just not happy about the whole situation.”

He wasn’t the only person unhappy as Piastri’s fight to hold onto the lead was undone when he tried to pass Sainz. Although the Spaniard had been shown seven blue-flag boards, he did not move out of Piastri’s way and continued to fight Fernando Alonso “like it was the world championship”.

The two collided when Piastri tried to lap Sainz.

Piastri told PlanetF1.com and other accredited media: “I couldn’t believe what happened. Getting crashed into by a lapped car is never one of the things you expect that can go wrong in your race.”

“Sainz not only insisted it wasn’t his fault but a ‘racing incident’; he also blamed Piastri, saying the McLaren driver should’ve been a “bit more careful, given that he’s the one fighting for podiums and positioning himself a bit more cautiously because with all the issues we were all having with the blue flags.”

Sainz was handed a five-second penalty for ignoring blue flags, as was Oliver Bearman, who held up Isack Hadjar.

Although he felt “bad” about the situation, the Haas driver called the situation a “nightmare”, adding: “They [the blue flags] weren’t working properly, so it was tough to know if it was you or the car behind or the car ahead or whatever getting the blue flag.”

More on the blue flag confusion from PlanetF1.com

New Oscar Piastri, Carlos Sainz evidence emerges after Hungarian Grand Prix penalty

Toto Wolff slams ‘Teletubbies engineers’ at Hungarian Grand Prix

Coulthard had no time for their excuses.

The 13-time Grand Prix winner blasted the drivers and their teams for being “not good enough” in how they dealt with the situation.

After all, the race engineers could’ve gone old-school and actually looked at the track and who was near their driver when he raced past them. That would’ve given them an idea of what was going on even if the blue flag system wasn’t working correctly.

“It was like the first day of school!” he said on the Up to Speed podcast, “and I’m talking kindergarten in the way that drivers were reacting to blue flags.

“Now, some will say the timing streams had an issue, but there is such a thing as just being spatially aware and your engineers actually looking over the pit wall.

“I made this comment in commentary: very few of the teams now actually have a gap on their what is affectionately known as the prats perch, the engineering wall where the engineers and the team principal normally sit.

“In the case of Toto, of course, he’s sitting back in the garage, but they look, and they did look over the pit wall back in the day, and you have a certain awareness of where the other cars are.

“So, you can’t ever factor in qualifying on somebody coming out of the pit lane. But in a Grand Prix, when people are circulating at pace, you can usually tell.

“Well, not usually… you absolutely can tell! It just wasn’t good enough.”

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