New Oscar Piastri, Carlos Sainz evidence emerges after Hungarian Grand Prix penalty
Oscar Piastri and Carlos Sainz had a bad-tempered clash in Hungary
Onboard footage from the Hungarian Grand Prix has revealed that Carlos Sainz passed seven blue-flag warnings prior to his collision with McLaren driver Oscar Piastri.
It comes after Sainz was handed a five-second time penalty for the incident at Turn 2.
New Oscar Piastri, Carlos Sainz evidence emerges after Hungarian GP penalty
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Piastri was in the fight for victory in Budapest last weekend when he came up to lap Sainz, who eventually finished two laps down in 18th place.
Sainz was in the midst of a battle with Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin at Turn 2 when he made tyre-to-tyre contact with Piastri, who lost valuable time to McLaren teammate Lando Norris.
A furious Piastri was heard saying over team radio: “Get out of the **** way, you idiot! Oh my god…”
After losing the lead to Norris during the pit-stop phase, Piastri went on to retire a short time later with a gearbox problem.
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Sainz was handed a five-second penalty for the collision after being deemed by the stewards to be “wholly responsible” for the collision.
The stewards decided against imposing the standard 10-second penalty on Sainz after judging that the Williams driver’s visibility of Piastri’s car was limited due to his positioning on the circuit.
In a post to social media, Sainz later pointed to “an issue with the blue flags’ system” with Piastri “in my blind spot” when the incident took place.
However, the stewards revealed that Sainz “had been informed that Car 81 (Piastri) was approaching” prior to the collision.
Onboard footage from Budapest has revealed that Sainz passed seven trackside panels flashing blue – used to signify that a faster car is approaching – in the moments before the incident.
Sainz passed three blue panels at the end of the preceding lap before passing two more on the pit straight.
Piastri is heard saying over team radio at this stage: “Come on, there’s plenty of blues.”
As he approaches Turn 1, Sainz is told by the Williams pit wall: “Blue flag of Piastri.”
Sainz then passes two further blue panels, positioned on the exit of Turn 1 and the entry of Turn 2, before the contact with Piastri.
Sainz is heard saying in the aftermath of the collision: “I had no idea Piastri was there. No idea.”
Oliver Bearman, the Haas driver who was also hit with a five-second penalty for a blue-flag infringement with Isack Hadjar, shed more light on the problems affecting the drivers.
Bearman told PlanetF1.com and other media outlets: “I feel bad about the blue flag penalty with Hadjar because, honestly, it was a bit of a nightmare out there.
“You go through the infield, you don’t have time to check in the mirrors and basically every lap I did I had a blue flag screens coming up.
“This race they 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.
“So obviously it wasn’t malicious. I’m a lap down, I’m not trying to do anything bad, but obviously feel bad for anyone’s race that I may have compromised.”
He added: “At the start of the race, I was getting blue flags after six laps and I thought: ‘Wow, that’s strange. We’re not that slow to be lapped in six laps.’
“So, from lap six until lap 70, there was some blue flags every single lap, so it was really tough to know what was real, what was fake, what was for me, what wasn’t.
“Normally you have your number [but] this time it was just a blue, so nothing malicious.
“I had to really rely on the team to help me through those blue flags.”
Additional reporting by Thomas Maher
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