Toto Wolff: Mercedes team principal hits out at ‘Teletubbies engineers’ amid blue flag system failure at Hungarian GP
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri have both hit out at lapped runners who interfered with the lead battles at the Hungarian Grand Prix; watch all the remaining 2026 races live on Sky Sports F1, starting with the Dutch GP from August 21-23
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has criticised “Teletubbies engineers” as Oscar Piastri labelled backmarkers “unacceptable” after he made contact with Carlos Sainz at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
In the second half of the race, the leaders found it tricky to navigate lapped runners and it has since emerged there was a problem with the blue flag system which led to physical blue-waved flags and panels being the only way drivers knew about upcoming front-runners.
Normally, the drivers get a blue signal on their dash to indicate when they need to move over when about to lose a lap.
It led to a key moment in the lead battle between Piastri and eventual race-winner Lando Norris where the Australian was nearly taken out by Sainz at Turn 2 when the Williams driver came across 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 due to gearbox failure when running in second.
“Getting crashed into by a lapped car is never one of the things you expect that can go wrong in your race, and today it was, so I don’t really care if he didn’t see me. The fact that he didn’t and no one told him, or there was a lack of complete awareness, is unacceptable.”
Sainz, who was given a five-second time penalty for the collision, thinks the systems fault was a “pretty good excuse” for the collision.
“I had no idea I was about to get lapped, and on top of that, I was in a big fight with Fernando trying to undercut him into the corner,” he said.
“I wouldn’t have expected Oscar to be there, and even if he was there or I would have expected he was on my dead spot on the angle, so it was impossible honestly from my side to avoid it.
“Probably a bit better communication would have helped, but at the same time [it was] a racing thing.”
Mercedes chief Wolff was also critical of the backmarkers as it impacted the battle for the podium between Kimi Antonelli and Lewis Hamilton when the pair were chasing down Max Verstappen.
Wolff told Sky Sports F1: “The marshalling system not functioning and cars at the back defending in the Lewis and Kimi fight. It’s disgraceful from some of the Teletubbies engineers that sit on the pit walls of these teams not telling their drivers what’s happening behind.”
Piastri: Sainz should look in the mirror
Piastri’s contact with Norris cost him time and the lead to his team-mate at the second round of pit stops which only heightened his frustration.
Sainz thinks Piastri “could also have been a bit more careful” given he was fighting for the win, but Piastri disagreed with the comments.
“He’s quite critical of others, and others have given him some stick before for being frustrating on-track,” said Piastri.
“When you go and do something like that, maybe you should look in the mirror a bit.”
The McLaren driver added: “Without getting crashed into, I would have been ahead of Lando still. So from that side of things I was fine.
“In the moment I was incredibly annoyed – in fact annoyed is not the word I would use, there’s a multitude that I would – with Carlos. Then obviously when Lando came out ahead, I knew I had no pace to go and attack him.
“I knew my chances of winning the race were done from there. So in the moment, yeah, I was p**** off that I’d lost the lead of the race, but that wasn’t the fault of the team, 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 is happening it means something wasn’t working correctly,” he told Sky Sports F1.
“I understand that the blue panels maybe were the problem. After that we told our drivers to be just super, super cautious because, for some reason, the backmarkers seemed to be struggling more than normal.”
Credit: Skysports
