Former Formula 1 driver Ralf Schumacher stated that Carlos Sainz should receive a harsher penalty for the contact with Oscar Piastri during the Hungarian GP last Sunday (26). For the German, the five seconds applied to the Williams driver were not enough, and he advocated for a sanction in the qualifying of the next stage, in Zandvoort.
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The incident happened when Piastri was trying to overtake Sainz, who was battling for position with Fernando Alonso. The cars touched, leaving the Australian furious as he vented over the team radio. After the race, Schumacher criticized the stewards’ decision:
“It’s something that makes you angry,” he told Sky Germany. “None of them were fighting for points. Then the race leader comes, and Sainz hit his car. An absolutely unacceptable thing from my point of view. A normal penalty is not enough. For me, Carlos Sainz should be punished for the next race. In qualifying at Zandvoort, he has to get one. Because otherwise, this will set a precedent, this cannot happen at all.”
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The episode occurred in a race marked by a system failure, which prevented several drivers from receiving blue flags when the leaders approached for overtaking. The situation also drew criticism from Toto Wolff, who blamed the “Teletubby engineers” for not alerting their drivers.
Schumacher, however, stated that the drivers also have responsibility: “Every driver knows what it’s about. You have your engineer, ask questions, and also look in the rearview mirror. If he tells me he can’t look in the rearview mirror while driving, then he is overloaded and has to stop. But that is really unsportsmanlike!”, he concluded.
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