Oscar Piastri tears into Carlos Sainz after hearing 'dumb' explanation for Hungarian Grand Prix collision

Oscar Piastri has spoken of his frustration after a collision with Carlos Sainz derailed his progress at the front of the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Piastri led after his second stop at the Hungaroring but lost seconds when he was delayed and ultimately impeded by Sainz as he lapped the Spanish driver.

Sainz took a five-second penalty for his part in the incident despite Formula 1 officials acknowledging that Piastri was in his blind spot at the crucial moment.

The Williams driver blamed a failure of the system that alerts back-markers when they're about to be lapped, explaining after the GP that he was racing with Fernando Alonso and couldn't have known of Piastri's position.

"We didn't have blue lights on the steering, which normally, when we are in fights like that one where we are fighting for position, helps us to understand whether we're getting lapped or not," said Sainz, as reported by F1.

Piastri was unimpressed, telling Viaplay that: "For me, that's no excuse at all. That's got to be one of the dumbest things I've ever seen on the race track so, yeah, I don't really care what excuse he gave."

Piastri's teammate Lando Norris came out from his own stop in front of the Australian and went on to win the GP, his first of the 2026 season.

It went from bad to worse for his McLaren partner. Piastri had nudged ahead of championship leader Kimi Antonelli but was still behind Norris when his gearbox failed near the start of lap 56 and forced his retirement.

Norris sits in fifth place in the championship and is 19 points ahead of Red Bull driver Max Verstappen, who split the Brit and Antonelli on Sunday's podium.

Sainz's assessment of the racing incident that had such an impact on the lead didn't match that of Piastri.

"I couldn’t believe what happened. 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," Piastri told reporters after the race.

"The fact that he didn’t and no one told him, or there was a lack of complete awareness, is unacceptable."

F1's warning system usually flashes blue lights at the side of the track and on the steering wheel of drivers who are about to be lapped. They're expected to allow the car behind them to pass without having a detrimental impact on their race.

Oscar Piastri: 'Maybe you should look in the mirror'

It emerged after the GP at the Hungaroring that the lights system was not fully functional, but the McLaren driver, who was seething in the immediate aftermath of the contact, believes there was more Sainz could have done to avoid him. He had some more pointed words after hearing of the Williams driver's comments.

"I knew there were blue flags, but there were blue flags on all the marshal signals," said Piastri.

"He’s quite critical of others, and others have given him some stick before for being frustrating on-track.

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

"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.

“I knew my chances of winning the race were done from there."