A furious Oscar Piastri labelled Carlos Sainz an “idiot” after the pair were involved in a crash during the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Piastri endured a frustrating day in Hungary, retiring with a gearbox problem with 14 laps to go having been caught up in a bizarre incident with Sainz’s Williams.
The Australian had pitted his McLaren from the lead on lap 32 and was looking to regain places after re-emerging, but came a cropper six laps later as he tried to move through the back-markers.
Sainz was engaged in a duel with Fernando Alonso towards the back of the field, and left Piastri fuming over an unfortunate incident as the pair made contact.
“Is he f****** stupid or what?,” Piastri said over the radio to his team. “Get out of the f****** way, you idiot! Oh my god.”
“Oscar, that’s Sainz that cost us that,” said Tom Stallard, Piastri’s race engineer. “Oh mate, just don’t even f****** talk to me,” the McLaren driver replied.
Sainz received a five-second time penalty for the incident – which would have offered little consolation to Piastri as teammate Lando Norris took advantage of the disruption to emerge from his own pit spot ahead of the Australian and go on to take his first race victory of 2026.
No damage appeared to be done to Piastri’s car, but a gearbox problem forced him out of the race with 14 laps to go having been running second behind Norris.
