Close to the crash
The incident that generated the most controversy and tension in the last Hungarian GP, continuing even after the race ended, was the contact between Oscar Piastri and Carlos Sainz. The Australian, who was leading the race at that moment, was hindered by the Spanish Williams driver, who as a lapped car should have given way to Piastri. A case that infuriated the McLaren driver, with Sainz (penalized by 5 seconds) later providing his own, questionable version of events on social media, without apologizing to the directly involved party for what happened.
Vowles does not agree
At Williams, there is also Team Principal James Vowles who defended his driver, this time pointing the finger at Fernando Alonso. Analyzing what happened in his column Vowles Verdict, the compatriots were fighting for position, but the first not to have respected the blue flags, according to the former Mercedes chief strategist, was the two-time world champion himself: “If I focus particularly on Carlos and Fernando, who was ahead of Oscar, Fernando had several blue lights flashing throughout the race, and effectively stayed ahead of Oscar – he commented – you have to follow the established order, so Fernando should have given up the position first. Instead, he did not, but took the opportunity to overtake Carlos on the inside at turn 1. However, in the section leading to Turn 2, Carlos is ahead again. With the blue panels at the next corner, Alonso overtook Carlos on the inside, which caused the latter to be behind, as seen in the video. While Carlos was rejoining the track, Oscar slipped on the inside.”
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Williams admits fault
The fact remains that the first to acknowledge the mistake made by the team was Vowles himself, with the engineers not signaling in time the arrival of Piastri behind Sainz due to a malfunction of the signals that appear on today’s car steering wheels: “What we should have done, since after all we are still fighting for a position that does not award points, was to signal to Carlos that something like this was happening when he was alongside Fernando on the straight before turn 2 – he concluded – this is what I mean when I say it’s our fault, but I hope this makes it clear that it was not an attempt to block Oscar or anything else. In fact, in this circumstance, there was another car behind, and probably should have given way before us“.
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