‘First day at school’ - David Coulthard slams Hungary F1 blue flag issues

David Coulthard says the problems encountered with blue flags during the Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix was “like the first day of school”, as he takes aim at drivers and teams.

The FIA’s automated blue flag system encountered an issue during last Sunday’s race at the Hungaroring, forcing lapped cars to be notified manually by the marshalling posts.

This led to a number of issues with lapped cars getting in the way, with the most notable example being the clash between Carlos Sainz and Oscar Piastri.

Sainz said it was “impossible to avoid” the incident, though onboard footage later showed that the Williams driver was given plenty of blue flags and was warned by his engineer that Piastri was behind.

Piastri fumed at Sainz, stating: "Yeah, I knew there were blue flag [issues], but there were blue flags on all the marshal signals.

"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."

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff criticised engineers as “Teletubbies” for not doing enough to warn their drivers they were about to be lapped.

Former F1 driver and commentator David Coulthard was also critical of the situation.

“We have to get into the blue flag scenario in Budapest,” he said in the Up to Speed podcast.

“It was like first day of school! And I'm talking kindergarten in the way that drivers were reacting to blue flags.

“Now, some will say the timing streams had an issue.

“But there is such a thing as just being spatially aware, and your engineers actually looking over the pit wall, and I made this comment in commentary: very few of the teams now actually have a gap on their, what is affectionately known as, prat perch, the engineering wall where the engineers and the team principal normally sit.

“In the case of Toto [Wolff], of course, he's sitting back in the garage, but they look, and they did look over the pit wall back in the day, and you have a certain awareness of where the other cars are.

“So, you can't ever factor in qualifying on somebody coming out of the pit lane.

“But in a grand prix, when people are circulating at pace, you can usually tell. Well, not usually – you absolutely can tell! It just wasn't good enough.”