An unaired tirade from Max Verstappen during the Hungarian GP went viral after the race weekend. The Red Bull driver, who ultimately finished second behind Lando Norris, fiercely criticized his fellow Racing Bulls drivers over the radio. Verstappen lost a lot of time overtaking these backmarkers. Due to a system error, several drivers had no visibility of the blue flags at the Hungaroring.
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Although Verstappen ultimately achieved a strong result, the four-time world champion was critical of his car’s behavior for much of the race and frequently complained about the balance. Traffic on the track also caused extra frustration, especially when he found himself behind Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad. On onboard footage, it can be seen how the two Racing Bulls drivers kept battling each other, without making room for the faster Red Bull. “They should get a penalty, this is really ridiculous,” Verstappen roared. “What idiots, my god.”
Afterwards, a system malfunction was revealed as the cause of the confusion. The light panels along the circuit, as well as the blue signals on the steering wheel, were not functioning properly, causing drivers to rely on old-fashioned blue flags and notifications from their race engineers. Verstappen was eventually able to pass Lawson and Lindblad, but Oscar Piastri was less lucky. After leading for a long time, the Australian encountered backmarker Carlos Sainz after his pit stop. Sainz was involved in a battle with Fernando Alonso and therefore left no room for the McLaren driver. The Spaniard eventually received a time penalty.
Confusion everywhere
Esteban Ocon explained afterwards that he also experienced confusion due to the malfunction. “We received no feedback on the dashboard,” he told the media. “We only saw the blue flag panels, but not for which car the flag was intended. For example, I was ahead of Isack (Hadjar, ed.) when leaving the pit lane, but at that moment I didn’t know I was a lap down. I probably defended for three corners before the team told me not to race him. That wasn’t immediately clear to me – the blue flag signals were continuously on.”
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Teammate Oliver Bearman also admitted that he got in Hadjar’s way. “You don’t have time to constantly check your mirrors and basically we saw blue flags the entire lap. The system wasn’t working well, making it difficult to determine who they were meant for. If I affected someone’s race because of that, it certainly wasn’t intentional and I only find that unfortunate. I’m a lap down and obviously try not to do anything wrong.”
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