Piastri had to settle for fifth in qualifying after encountering Hamilton at Turn 1 as he began what should have been his final push lap at the Hungaroring.
Hamilton had completed his own flying lap and was travelling slowly on the racing line, forcing Piastri to lock up, run wide and abandon the attempt before it had properly begun.
The Australian drove alongside Hamilton and offered a sarcastic thumbs-up, with the seven-time world champion raising his hand in apology after realising he had impeded the McLaren.
Although yellow flags caused by a spin for Max Verstappen and George Russell stopping on track with a water pump issue also disrupted the closing stages of qualifying, Piastri made it clear Hamilton had been responsible for ending his challenge.
“It was just Lewis not looking in his mirrors. The yellow flag wasn’t my problem,” he explained.
“A shame because it meant I didn’t get a lap in either way. Clearly the car’s been quick today. I’ve certainly been chasing it.
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“It’s not been easy, but yeah, clearly there’s performance there.”
Piastri’s frustration was compounded by teammate Lando Norris taking pole with a 1m17.207s, showing the McLaren possessed enough pace to lead the field.
The stewards subsequently determined Hamilton had unnecessarily impeded Piastri and handed the Ferrari driver a three-place grid penalty, dropping him from second to fifth and promoting Piastri to fourth.
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“At the approach to Turn 1, Car 44 was travelling at a significantly reduced speed on the racing line while Car 81 was approaching on a push lap,” the stewards said.
“The driver of Car 44 explained that he had just completed a fast lap and did not receive the team’s radio message regarding the approaching Car 81 until the latter was already in close proximity.
“He further stated that, due to the positioning of his car on the track, Car 81 was not visible in his mirrors.
“Car 81, which was on a push lap, was forced to take avoiding action by running wide and being obliged to abort the lap.
“Having examined the available evidence, the Stewards determined that Car 44 unnecessarily impeded Car 81 during qualifying.
“In accordance with the FIA F1 Regulations and the established penalty guidelines for this type of infringement in Qualifying, the Stewards impose a three-place grid penalty on the driver of Car 44.”
Hamilton explained he had received the warning from Ferrari too late to react, having believed the remaining drivers had completed their final laps.
“Yeah, I was told literally when he [Piastri] was at the apex behind me,” Hamilton said.
“So I had no idea he was coming. I thought everyone came out behind me, I was the first out, so I thought everyone had finished their lap.
“I think Charles [Leclerc] was the car that was behind me when I left the pitlane, as far as I was aware.
“So, crazy, because it had been clean [prior to that] and obviously it wasn’t intentional.”
Piastri said he had been able to see Hamilton from the start-finish line and had expected the Ferrari to move aside before the pair reached the opening corner.
“It was pretty bad,” Piastri said.
“I saw [Hamilton] from the start line and kind of watched him, expecting him to get out of the way.
“I watched him basically all the way up until I nearly hit him. So, a shame.”
Sky Sports F1 commentator Anthony Davidson also described the incident as a clear case of impeding after reviewing Piastri’s onboard footage.
“That was a clear impeding in Turn 1 as far as Piastri is concerned. And I think it’s hard to argue against that,” Davidson said.
Piastri had already faced a difficult build-up to qualifying after missing opening practice and spending much of the weekend attempting to find the right balance in changing wind conditions.
“That’s definitely not helped for sure [missing FP1], but the wind conditions have been quite different today, so it was a bit of a reset in some ways,” he said.
“But I just feel like I’ve been chasing it the whole weekend to an extent. I feel like I need another few practice sessions to really get on top of things, which we don’t have.”
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella believed Piastri had been finding more performance as qualifying progressed and could have challenged closer to the front had his final lap not been compromised.
“It’s a shame for Oscar that he had the impeding in corner one, because I think he had quite a lot of performance,” Stella said.
“He was starting to find a good tuning with the conditions today. So it’s a shame we didn’t see the last attempt.”
McLaren brought several upgrades to Hungary which Stella estimated had added a few tenths of a second to the car, although the team had not expected the package to be enough to secure pole.
Norris nevertheless capitalised to beat Hamilton by 0.012s, ending Mercedes’ run of poles at every race during the opening part of the 2026 season.
“Pole’s pole. So I’m happy that we’re back on top,” Norris said.
“It felt good with the car all weekend. We’ve certainly been able to maximise more and more the package and the upgrades that we brought.
“And it’s nice to see that it certainly helped us get a good result today.”
The Hungarian Grand Prix gets underway at 11pm AEST Sunday.
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