Oscar Piastri confirms Carlos Sainz messages over blue flag fiasco

Oscar Piastri has revealed he exchanged messages with Carlos Sainz following their collision during the Hungarian Grand Prix, when the Williams driver hit the McLaren while being lapped amid a failure of F1's automated blue flag system.

The incident at Turn 2 cost Piastri the lead of the race. The Australian had been working through lapped traffic after his second pit stop when Sainz, battling Fernando Alonso for position near the back of the field, swung back onto the racing line just as Piastri moved up the inside to pass him.

Piastri was scathing in the immediate aftermath, describing the collision as "unacceptable" and "one of the dumbest things I've ever seen on a race track."

The GPS-based blue flag system had malfunctioned from around lap six onwards, leaving drivers without the usual cockpit warnings and forcing race control to revert to manual marshalling.

However, post-race analysis showed Sainz had passed seven blue flag trackside panels in the moments before contact and had been informed over team radio that Piastri was approaching.

The stewards found Sainz wholly responsible and handed him a five-second time penalty. Piastri, meanwhile, ultimately retired from the race on Lap 56 with an unrelated gearbox failure.

Speaking ahead of the Dutch Grand Prix, the nine-time grand prix winner confirmed he had been in touch with Sainz since the incident.

"We had a couple of messages, yes," he told media, including RacingNews365. "Yeah, we had a couple of messages..."

Piastri did not elaborate on the content of those exchanges, but his tone was measured compared to the fury he expressed at the Hungaroring.

"In Hungary, the fact that the system wasn't working properly was obviously not ideal," he added when asked if the matter was something to discuss in the drivers' briefing at Zandvoort.

"But at the end of the day, the teams and the drivers have a responsibility to make sure that they're following the rules.

"I think we're probably the only series in the world that has that blue flag system, and every other series... okay, some series have different rules about blue flags, but I don't think that necessarily needs to change.

"I think it's just that when that system doesn't work, obviously, there needs to be more attention on blue flags."