Toto Wolff: Mercedes team boss lashes out at 'Teletubbies engineers' amid blue flag system failure at Hungarian GP

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has criticized “Teletubbies engineers” as Oscar Piastri branded rear markers “unacceptable” after he made contact with Carlos Sainz at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

In the second half of the race, managers found it difficult to navigate around runners, and it has since emerged that there was a problem with the blue flag system, which led to physical blue wavy flags and panels being the only way drivers knew about upcoming front runners.

Usually drivers get a blue signal on their dashboard to indicate when to move over when they are losing a lap.

It led to a key moment in the lead battle between Piastri and eventual race winner Lando Norris, with the Australian almost taken out by Sainz at Turn 2 when the Williams driver bumped into him, unaware Piastri was there.

“I was right behind him [Sainz] for a sector. I couldn’t believe what happened,” said Piastri, who later retired with gearbox failure while running second.

“Getting hit by a lapped car is never one of those things you expect to go wrong in your race and it was today, so I don’t really care if he didn’t see me. The fact that he didn’t and nobody told him or there was a complete lack of awareness is unacceptable.”

Sainz, who received a five-second time penalty for the collision, believes the system error was a “pretty good excuse” for the collision.

“I had no idea I was getting lapped and on top of that I was in a big fight with Fernando trying to undercut him in the corner,” he said.

“I didn’t expect Oscar to be there and even if he was, or I expected him to be in my dead center on the angle, so it was quite frankly impossible for me to avoid it.

“Probably a bit better communication would have helped, but at the same time [it was] a racing thing.”

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff was also critical of the backmarkers as it affected the battle for the podium between Kimi Antonelli and Lewis Hamilton as the pair chased Max Verstappen.

Wolff told Sky Sports F1: “The ranking system isn’t working and cars behind are defending themselves in the Lewis and Kimi battle. It’s shameful from some of the Teletubbies engineers who sit on the pit walls of these teams and don’t tell their drivers what’s going on behind them.”

Piastri: Sainz should look in the mirror

Piastri’s contact with Norris cost him time and the lead to his teammate at the second round of pit stops, only adding to his frustration.

Sainz believes that Piastri “could also have been a bit more careful” when he was fighting for the win, but Piastri disagreed with the comments.

“He’s quite critical of others and others have given him stick before for being frustrating on the pitch,” Piastri said.

“When you go and do something like that, maybe you should look in the mirror a little bit.”

The McLaren driver added: “Without being run into I would still have been ahead of Lando. So from that side of things I was fine.

“At the moment I was incredibly annoyed – actually annoyed is not the word I would use, there’s a lot that I would – with Carlos. So when Lando got out in front I knew I had no pace to go and attack him.

“I knew my chances of winning the race were done from there. So at the moment, yes, I was afraid that I had lost the lead in the race, but it wasn’t the team’s fault, it was Carlos’ fault.”

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella took a more measured view of the incident but admitted it cost Piastri time.

“We know Carlos. He’s such a fair driver, correct. So if this happens, it means something didn’t work correctly,” he shared Sky Sports F1.

“I understand that maybe the blue panels were the problem. Then we told our drivers to be super, super careful because for some reason the rear markers seemed to struggle more than usual.”

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