Piastri was attempting to lap Sainz at Turn 2 on Lap 38 when the Spaniard moved back towards the racing line and made contact with the McLaren, forcing the Australian briefly onto the grass as he fought to retain control of his car.
The incident came after Piastri had pitted from the lead and was attempting to remain within a pit stop of teammate Lando Norris, who was yet to make his second stop. The Australian had been comfortably within the margin required to retain the lead before the clash cost him crucial time.
Sainz was handed a five-second penalty after the race for causing the collision, with the Spaniard blaming the incident on not receiving an electronic blue-flag warning amid technical issues with the system.
But Piastri was in no mood to accept his explanation.
“For me, there’s no excuse at all,” Piastri told Viaplay.
“That’s got to be one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen on a race track.
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“I don’t really care what excuse you give.”
Piastri had already made his anger clear over the radio immediately after the contact.
“Get out of the way you f**king idiot. Oh my god!” he said.
Problems with the electronic blue-flag system meant drivers were not always receiving the usual warning on their steering wheels, although blue flags were still being displayed by the marshal-operated light panels around the Hungaroring.
Piastri said that offered no justification for Sainz failing to recognise that the race leader was directly behind him.
“Yeah, I knew there were blue flag [issues], but there were blue flags on all the marshal signals,” Piastri said.
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“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.”
The contact came at the decisive moment of the grand prix after Piastri had led since the opening lap and been given priority by McLaren during the second round of pit stops.
The Australian had started third but passed Charles Leclerc into Turn 1 before taking the lead from Norris at Turn 2 when the reigning world champion ran wide.
Piastri remained ahead through the first round of stops, although he struggled with the balance of his McLaren on the hard tyres as Norris closed to within one second.
McLaren brought Piastri in for his second stop on Lap 34 to cover Lewis Hamilton, while Norris remained on track and attempted to build the gap required to overcut his teammate.
Piastri initially appeared to be doing enough to remain ahead, but the time lost in the Sainz collision allowed Norris to make his stop and return to the track in the lead.
The usually composed Piastri then directed his frustration towards McLaren over the radio after being told the incident had cost him the position.
“Oh mate, don’t even f**king talk to me right now,” he said.
“Nice of you guys to factor that one (the traffic) in by the way, thanks.”
Piastri admitted after the race that he had briefly hoped McLaren would delay Norris’ stop to give him an opportunity to remain ahead following the collision.
However, he accepted that would have unfairly compromised his teammate and said McLaren had made the correct strategic decision by covering Hamilton.
“In the moment I was hoping maybe they would not pit Lando because of that incident, to at least give me the chance to stay in the lead, but I think that’s not very reasonable,” Piastri told Sky Sports F1.
“So I was more just very upset in the moment about what had happened. I think the timing of my pit stop was fine. We wanted to beat Lewis and that’s what we needed to do to do that.”
Speaking to written media, Piastri was even clearer that responsibility for losing the lead rested with Sainz rather than McLaren.
“I think the timing of my stop was fine,” he said.
“We wanted to cover off Hamilton, which was perfectly normal. Without getting crashed into, I would have been ahead of Lando still.
“Obviously, when Lando came out ahead, I knew I had no pace to go and attack him, so I knew my chances of winning the race were done from there.
“So, in the moment, I was pissed off that I’d lost the lead of the race. But that wasn’t the fault of the team. It was Carlos’ fault.”
Piastri added that McLaren could not reasonably sacrifice Norris’ race because of an incident neither of its drivers had caused.
“I felt maybe the team could have not pitted Lando if it was a two-car race, but I know it’s not a two-car race,” he said.
“I know that Lando’s got his own race to try and win and there’s other people.
“They can’t just not box Lando because of something out of his control and out of my control. From that side of things, it’s fine. I was just very, very pissed off in the moment about what happened.”
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella also defended the team’s decisions, explaining that Piastri had been stopped to protect his position against Hamilton before Norris capitalised on the delay caused by the backmarkers.
“How the race unfolded meant that with Oscar, we went and covered Hamilton, and then there was some situation with the back markers,” Stella told Sky Sports F1.
“Lando was very quick once he had the lead, and he took advantage of this pace and the fact that there was some delay for Oscar.
“That’s racing. We are McLaren Racing, and today it was great racing.”
Stella said the incident appeared out of character for Sainz and believed the blue-flag problems had contributed to what happened.
“Well certainly it caused quite a bit of loss of time,” he said.
“We know Carlos is such a fair driver. Correct. So if this is happening, it means that something wasn’t working correctly. I understand that the blue panels maybe was the problem.
“Certainly after that we told our drivers to be just super cautious because for some reasons the back markers seem to be struggling more than normal.”
Piastri remained on course to finish second after losing the lead but his race ended on Lap 56 when a gearbox problem forced him to stop at the exit of Turn 2.
He said he was unsure what had caused the failure when asked whether it may have been linked to his use of the kerbs.
“I don’t know. When it broke I was taking my normal line, so I’m not sure,” he said.
Norris went on to claim McLaren’s first victory of the season ahead of Max Verstappen and championship leader Kimi Antonelli.
The Briton acknowledged that Piastri’s misfortune had helped him but believed his pace and tyre management had put him in a position to fight for victory regardless.
“Of course a little bit on luck on my side, or there was misfortune on his side,” Norris told Sky Sports F1.
“Which is a shame because it would have been great for us to have double points as a team. And probably a 1-2.”
Piastri was left without a point despite leading for more than half the race, although he believed he could have held Norris behind through track position.
“It’s definitely a lost chance, yes,” he said.
“The pace wasn’t great at all on the hard tyres, but I felt like as long as I held track position, I had a decent chance of hanging on to the end.
“It wasn’t going to be pretty, but I felt like it was possible. From that point on, pretty much everything that could have gone wrong, even the things you never think of, did go wrong.”
Piastri’s first DNF of the season dropped him to seventh in the drivers’ standings, 36 points behind Norris and 127 points behind championship leader Antonelli.
Piastri’s victory hopes collapse as Norris wins Hungarian GP
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