Toto Wolff rages at “Teletubbies” engineers over Hungary F1 blue flags

Mercedes Formula 1 team boss Toto Wolff has labelled a lack of blue flag warnings from “Teletubbies” engineers to lapped drivers in the Hungarian Grand Prix as “disgraceful”.

An FIA systems issue meant it had to revert to a manual blue flag system for the Hungarian Grand Prix, relying on marshal flags and teams to inform their drivers of oncoming traffic.

This led to numerous issues with lapped cars, including a clash between Oscar Piastri and Carlos Sainz as the former was trying to get through on the Williams driver.

Later in the race, Mercedes’ Andrea Kimi Antonelli was repeatedly held up by lapped cars while battling with Lewis Hamilton for third.

In a stunning outburst on Sky Sports F1, Wolff slammed race engineers as children’s television characters “Teletubbies” for not doing more to warn their drivers when they were being lapped.

“It’s just not acceptable and not good enough from us,” he said about George Russell’s difficult race, before adding, “And then the marshalling system not functioning and cars in the back defending against Lewis and Kimi’s fight.

“It’s just disgraceful from some of these Teletubbies engineers that sit on the pit walls of these teams, not telling the drivers what’s happening behind.

“And so, overall, I’m just not happy with the whole situation.”

Sainz was penalised for the clash with Piastri, but felt that the stewards should have taken a lighter view of the incident given the blue flag system issue.

However, McLaren’s Piastri raged at Sainz for not having more awareness of what was going on around him.

“Yeah, I knew there were blue flag [issues], but there were blue flags on all the marshal signals," Piastri told media after Sunday’s 70-lap race. 

“I was right behind him. I couldn't believe what happened. Getting crashed into by a lapped car is never one of the things you expect that can go wrong in your 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.

“He was fighting Fernando for last place like it was the world championship. It cost me the lead of the race. He's quite critical of others. 

“Others have given him some stick before for being frustrating on track. When you go and do something like that, I think maybe you should look in the mirror a bit.”