RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 1 sourcesThe fallout from the messy 2026 Hungarian Grand Prix is far from over. Following the controversial collision between McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Williams driver Carlos Sainz , the blame game has officially expanded to include a third party: Fernando Alonso .
In a classic case of paddock deflection, Williams Team Principal James Vowles has publicly come to his driver’s defense, arguing that the Aston Martin veteran is actually the one responsible for instigating the Turn 3 crash.
The Budapest Bottleneck
To understand the latest accusation, you have to rewind to the halfway point of the race at the Hungaroring. Piastri, who was running as the net race leader, approached Sainz and Alonso to lap them. At Turn 3, Sainz moved back onto the racing line, making direct contact with Piastri’s McLaren.
The incident cost Piastri crucial time, ultimately causing him to lose the race lead to his teammate Lando Norris (who went on to win the Grand Prix). A furious Piastri blasted the move as “unacceptable,” while Sainz deflected the blame onto a blue flag system failure on his dash .
Now, Vowles has offered a completely different narrative, meticulously breaking down the sequence of events to shift the spotlight off his driver.
Speaking to RaceFans this week, Vowles argued that the collision came about because Alonso blatantly ignored his own blue flags, creating a chaotic bottleneck that trapped Sainz.
“Fernando had a number of blue flashing lights all the way through and in fact remained in position in front of Oscar,” Vowles explained. “You have to do it in order, so Fernando should have conceded that position earlier. What happened is, he didn’t.”
A Deflection Tactic by James Vowles?
According to Vowles, because Alonso refused to yield to the race leader, he and Sainz ended up engaged in a bizarre, low-speed battle while Piastri was trying to lap them both.
Vowles broke down the messy sequence of overtakes that led to the crash: “We took an opportunity to go up the inside of Carlos into turn one. So at that stage Carlos then became the car behind, and when you do, you have a number of marshal posts to therefore give up position. However, on the run down to turn two, Carlos was back ahead now, so the car behind is Fernando again with the light boards.”
This constant swapping of positions completely scrambled the blue flag yielding order.
“Again, into the next corner, Fernando went to the inside of Carlos, which put Carlos the car behind,” Vowles continued. “You’ll see that on the video, as Carlos came back on to rejoin, that’s when Oscar went on the inside.”
Unsurprisingly, pointing the finger at the 45-year-old Aston Martin driver has not gone over well with the Formula 1 fanbase.
While Vowles is naturally expected to shield his driver from criticism, critics are largely viewing the latest excuse as a desperate deflection. Sainz was ultimately handed a five-second penalty by the FIA stewards, and his own onboard footage clearly showed him driving past eight trackside light panels displaying blue flags before the collision.
Across social media, fans have ripped into the Williams team boss for utilizing corporate “LinkedIn slop” to cover up a blatant driver error. Rather than simply admitting Sainz made a mistake while battling Alonso for a lower-order position, Vowles has successfully dragged Alonso into the fray to take the heat off the Williams garage.
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