F1 drivers criticised after blue flags farce: 'Not good enough'

Former F1 driver David Coulthard has criticised teams and drivers over their handling of the blue flag confusion during the Hungarian Grand Prix.

A system failure during the race meant blue flag notifications were not sent to lapped cars.

The issue left the front-runners heavily frustrated, with Oscar Piastri even making contact with Carlos Sainz while battling for the race lead.

Max Verstappen was also angered by the situation, branding those who failed to move aside as “morons” over the team radio.

Coulthard argued that the system malfunction was not a sufficient excuse for failing to recognise the leaders and allow them through without unnecessary delay.

“It was like first day of school! And I'm talking kindergarten in the way that drivers were reacting to blue flags,” Coulthard told the Up to Speed podcast.

“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.”

Coulthard argued it would have been simple for the engineers to instruct their drivers of the cars coming through on the lead lap by simply looking beyond their 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,” he said.

“In the case of Toto [Wolff], 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.”