Sainz explains Piastri contact as blue-light failure complicates Hungarian GP

Sainz accepts penalty after Piastri contact

Carlos Sainz has defended his actions after colliding with Oscar Piastri while being lapped during the Hungarian Grand Prix, insisting that a disabled blue-light system and the intensity of his battle with Fernando Alonso left him with little chance to avoid the contact.

The Williams driver was fighting Alonso for 14th position when he cut back across the track and clipped the front of Piastri’s McLaren. Piastri escaped without damage, but lost valuable time and momentum while battling team-mate Lando Norris. His frustration was evident over team radio.

The FIA stewards noted that Piastri had been in Sainz’s blind spot, while the Williams pit wall had communicated the approaching McLaren. Sainz, however, said his attention was fixed on Alonso and that the steering-wheel blue lights, normally a key additional warning for lapped traffic, had been disabled.

A GPS communication issue had produced rogue warnings during the early laps, forcing the system to be switched off. Drivers still had to obey waved blue flags and the blue panels around the circuit, although those panels were not displaying the relevant car numbers.

“So at this stage, I had no idea I was about to get lapped,” Sainz said. “I was in a big fight with Fernando, trying to undercut him into the corner, and I wouldn’t have expected Oscar to be there.”

He added that Piastri was positioned in his “dead spot”, making the incident impossible to avoid from his perspective. Sainz nevertheless accepted the five-second penalty and apologised to Piastri, describing the collision as a racing incident.

A costly sequence for Williams

Sainz also suggested that Piastri might have positioned his car more cautiously, given the blue-flag difficulties affecting the field. He acknowledged, however, that drivers remain responsible for obeying the rules.

“If we were not so slow, there wouldn’t be so many blue flags,” he said, arguing that the ultimate solution was for the slower cars to close the performance gap and avoid being lapped.

The penalty was only one part of a difficult afternoon. Sainz made three pit stops, with the five-second sanction taken at the second stop, and ultimately finished 18th. He said the race had initially been encouraging, with Williams able to keep pace with Haas and even undercut one of its cars.

A late, unnecessary pit stop then dropped him behind Oliver Bearman and Alex Albon. Sainz said he needed to understand the decision, which left him questioning why the team had made the call. The incident therefore became a double blow: it disrupted Piastri’s fight and turned what Sainz viewed as a promising race into a lowly finish. Read more on the Sainz-Piastri contact and its consequences.