Steiner: Who cares about mitigating circumstances?

      The Hungarian Grand Prix concluded with Lando Norris's victory, marking the reigning world champion's first such achievement this year. More than a week has passed since the race at the Hungaroring, but some of its events are still being discussed by the global racing press. In particular, there is talk of a frustrating episode that occurred on lap 38 of the race when Oscar Piastri, Norris's teammate at McLaren, was overtaking the lapped Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz, who were in the midst of a battle for position at that time.

      We have presented the opinion of James Vowles, the team principal of Williams, who believes that Alonso is partly to blame for the incident that resulted in his driver receiving a 5-second penalty. Meanwhile, Sainz insisted that everything happened due to issues with the blue flag system, which Vowles also mentioned.

      However, Gunther Steiner, the former team principal of Haas F1, has a different opinion: he believes that the Spanish driver of Williams deserved a harsher penalty for his actions.

      The stewards explained their moderate verdict by stating that they took mitigating circumstances into account, namely the fact that Sainz, while moving left on the track, which caused the contact between the Williams and McLaren cars, could not see Piastri in his mirrors, which is related to both the track configuration and the traffic on it – all of this limited his visibility. By the way, the team managed to warn him over the radio that a McLaren car was approaching from behind at high speed.

      Steiner, participating in another episode of the Red Flags podcast, stated that Sainz should have received the standard 10-second penalty provided for in the championship's sporting regulations, as the marshals along the track were indeed showing the Aston Martin and Williams drivers blue flags, even if the signaling system was not functioning correctly.

      "In any case, it wouldn't have changed anything. Such actions cannot be taken, even if there is a software failure or something similar," Steiner said. "These are blue flags, and they were displayed. Ignoring them usually results in a 10-second penalty. There is no need to look for mitigating circumstances – who cares about them?

      It is clear that there were blue flags on the track, and ignoring them warrants a 10-second penalty. This is the standard, and Carlos should have received exactly that penalty, especially since it wouldn't have affected anything."