The issues with the blue flags during the Hungarian GP continue to stir emotions. After a malfunction in the FIA’s automated system caused confusion among the backmarkers, David Coulthard expressed criticism about the reactions from the cockpit and the pit wall. According to the Scot, both the drivers and the teams fell short. “It looked like a kindergarten class,” he responded sharply.
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Due to the malfunction, marshals had to manually wave blue flags, which led to several incidents during the race. The most painful example was the collision between Carlos Sainz and Oscar Piastri, in which the Australian lost valuable time in the fight for victory. Piastri was harshly critical of the Williams driver afterwards. “That was one of the dumbest moves I’ve ever seen,” he responded annoyed. Sainz relied on the fact that the systems were not working, but according to several experts, that is no excuse.
David Coulthard: ‘Kindergarten!’
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff emphasized that the pit wall is responsible for communicating blue flags in such a situation. “Those engineers are a bunch of Teletubbies who don’t open their mouths,” he said angrily. Coulthard agrees and believes that the problems cannot be attributed solely to the technology. “We need to talk about the blue flags in Budapest,” he said later on the Up to Speed podcast. “It was just the first day of school. And I really mean a kindergarten class when you look at how some drivers reacted.”
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“Some will defend themselves by saying the systems didn’t work, but there is such a thing as spatial awareness,” the former driver continued sternly. “It is up to the engineers to watch from the pit wall. Very few teams still have a view of the track from behind their pit installations. In the past, they used to look over the wall at the circuit to get a certain sense of where the cars are. In a Grand Prix, that is exactly how you gain insight into the relationships. This was simply not good enough.”
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