Carlos Sainz went from bad to worse in a matter of hours at the Hungarian Grand Prix—first tangling with Oscar Piastri on track, then getting slapped with a Community Note on Twitter for his explanation.
The 𝒹𝓇𝒶𝓂𝒶 kicked off when the Williams driver, struggling at the back of the pack, reportedly failed to move aside for Piastri’s faster McLaren. The collision on lap 38 cost Piastri any shot at points and earned Sainz a five-second penalty from the stewards.
After the race, Sainz took to X (formerly Twitter) to explain his side. He claimed there was an issue with the blue flag system and that Piastri appeared in his blind spot while he was battling Fernando Alonso. “I had a strong race, but there was an issue with blue flags’ system,” he wrote.
But a Community Note quickly appeared under his post, pointing to the official stewards’ decision. According to the note, the team did inform Sainz of the blue flags for Piastri, and while limited visibility was considered a mitigating factor, the driver was still held fully responsible for the crash.
Piastri didn’t hold back either. After retiring from the race, he called the incident “one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen on a race track,” adding that Sainz’s excuse about no flags showing on his steering wheel was no justification at all.
With the FIA’s own marshalling system reportedly suffering a failure—something even race winner Lando Norris and rookie Kimi Antonelli noticed during the grand prix—the whole messy weekend raises a bigger question: was the system failure partly to blame, or was this simply a rookie mistake from a veteran driver?
