Williams point the finger at Alonso over Sainz and Piastri's Hungarian GP collision
· Yahoo Sports
Williams team principal James Vowles has partially blamed Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso for his role in the controversial Hungarian GP collision between Oscar Piastri and Carlos Sainz. Piastri had the net lead of the race taken away after making contact with back-marker Sainz, and eventually suffered a DNF as teammate Lando Norris secured victory.
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Blaming the accident on a blue flag system malfunction that had plagued the race from an early stage, Sainz even claimed Piastri ought to have been "more cautious" when trying to lap him. The Aussie was not having any of it, saying post-race: "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."
Battling Aston's Alonso at the back of the grid at the time of the incident, onboard footage has shown Sainz driving past at least seven blue panels before colliding with Piastri at the exit of Turn 2 , and that he had been informed of the blue flags. The 30-year-old was deemed "wholly responsible" for the collision, but received a reduced five-second penalty, after stewards identified a "mitigating circumstance."
Williams boss explains blue flag system error
Photo: Race PicturesPhoto: Race Pictures
Speaking in a post-race Williams video, team boss Vowles said the Grove team should have handled the situation better despite the blue flag system error, but then suggested Alonso should have let Piastri through in the moments prior. Vowles initially explained the blue flag error: “We need to make sure that as FIA systems do fail, and they will fail from time to time, we have a slightly better mechanism in place.
“When a leader is approaching you, you get a warning, effectively. We translate it into an audio warning, but it’s also a warning that goes to the driver. So if they’re 1.6 seconds behind, for example, and closing in, we just make sure that we’re given a notification of that and we can start planning through what we’re going to do around the lap.
“It needs good GPS data for doing it. The second part of the system is that when that leader is 1.2 seconds behind, that’s a locked-in blue flag condition and we know that we have a number of marshalling posts to get out of the way of the leaders.”
"Two problems took place in Budapest, that flag system simply wasn’t working. In fact, at one point we were just operating with marshals doing their best, but waving blue flags, and it’s a very difficult thing for marshals to do, they don’t know when the cars are coming by and trigger that. What then was resolved was trying to use the flashing blue lights, but without indicating which driver it is [intended for].”
Vowles claims Alonso initially should have let Piastri through
Photo: Race PicturesPhoto: Race Pictures
Vowles then pointed out that when Piastri first caught up behind and Sainz and Alonso, it was the latter that was in his way. That was before Alonso made a daring move on his compatriot down the inside of Turn 1, which continued all the way down to the exit of the next corner. According to the Williams boss, Alonso should have let Piastri through in the moments prior to that sequence.
“Fernando had a number of blue flashing lights all the way through and in fact remained in position in front of Oscar," Vowles said. "You have to do it in order, so Fernando should have conceded that position earlier.
What happened is, he didn’t, but took an opportunity to go up the inside of Carlos into Turn 1. So at that stage Carlos then became the car behind and when you do, you have a number of marshal posts to therefore give up position. However on the run down to Turn 2, Carlos was back ahead now so the car behind is Fernando again with the light boards.
“Again, into the next corner, Fernando went to the inside of Carlos, which put Carlos the car behind. You’ll see that on the video, as Carlos came back on to rejoin, that’s when Oscar went on the inside."
Nevertheless, Vowles admitted Williams were not without fault even if cars were staying in place longer than they should have done due to the system error. Vowles added that since the team were fighting for a non-points position, they should have indicated to Sainz that "that was happening at the point where he was alongside Fernando on the run down to Turn 2."
“But it wasn’t an attempt to go and block Oscar or otherwise. Actually in this circumstance there was another car that was the car behind and that should have probably conceded before we did," Vowles concluded.