F1 News: FIA failure after Kimi Antonelli shown bizarre flag at Hungarian Grand Prix

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Hungarian Grand Prix

FIA failure after Kimi Antonelli shown bizarre flag at Hungarian Grand Prix

This could explain some strange marshalling decisions on Sunday

Kerry Violet F1 News Editor

F1 editor and journalist covering motorsport since 2024.

Sunday 26 July 2026 18:03

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F1's governing body, the FIA, are believed to have suffered from an issue with their marshalling system that led to Kimi Antonelli being shown a blue flag despite at one point leading the Hungarian Grand Prix.

In Formula 1, a blue flag is used to signify to a driver that they are about to be overtaken, but during a race it is shown in order to signal that a backmarker who is about to be lapped must move over and allow the following car to pass them.

When a blue flag is waved or signified via the FIA's light panels, said driver must get out of the way at their earliest convenience, and they will be punished if they fail to do so after being given three warnings.

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However, Antonelli was strangely given this instructions whilst leading the pack, not whilst flailing near the back of the grid at risk of being overtaken by a much faster car.

This suggested that instead there might have been an error on the FIA's part, something David Croft and Martin Brundle discussed after the race.

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Once the chequered flag had been waved and Lando Norris had claimed his first grand prix victory of the season on Sunday, he was joined in the cooldown room by Max Verstappen, who finished second, and Antonelli, who claimed P3.

Watching back some of the highlights from the race, the top three unpacked the issues with the blue flags shown throughout the Hungarian GP, once again suggesting something might have gone wrong for the stewards.

"There were no blue flags," suggested Norris to which Antonelli responded with: "They were giving me blue flags!"

The 19-year-old championship leader revealed: "I was getting the blue flags and I went on the radio and was like, 'what am I getting blue flags for? I was like, hello?

Race winner Norris then replied: "I think they just started giving them to everyone. Even I had a blue flag at one point."

Immediately after this conversation had been aired, Sky F1's Croft commented on the chat between the drivers in the cooldown room, saying: "That’s interesting, Lando saying he got a blue flag, Kimi saying that he got a blue flag, we understand that there was a failure, the FIA marshalling system, the light panels, which may have contributed to that.

"Certainly in the commentary box, our GPS driver tracker we lost for round about the entire race in terms of a moving driver tracker but it didn’t come on until about lap 45 so there might have been a few gremlins in the system."

Brundle then suggested: “I wonder if that’s why a lot of drivers just weren’t getting out the way at all were they. So maybe there were some gremlins.

"When Antonelli’s talking about, ‘I got a blue flag there,' he was leading," continued the Sky Sports legend.

GPFans have contacted the FIA for comment.

Croft also suggested the supposed FIA error could have been part of the problem with Carlos Sainz, who was handed a five-second penalty for failing to get out of Oscar Piastri's way after being informed he had been shown a blue flag.

Piastri eventually suffered from a gearbox failure which forced him to retire, with the Aussie driver understandably fuming after the race when he said of the Sainz incident: "Getting taken out by a backmarker is never really one of the things you think can go wrong. But I was proven wrong."

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff then appeared to confirm the issue during a post-race interview with Sky Sports describing the marshalling system as, 'not functioning.'

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Written by

Kerry Violet - F1 News Editor

Having graduated from the University of Sheffield with a 2:1 in Journalism in 2022, Kerry continued her pursuit of finding a full-time position in motorsport through work with the F1 Arcade in London, where she got to meet true fans of the sport and make a live grand prix watch party memorable for them. It was here that she confirmed her dream of combining her background in journalism and love of motorsport, going on to volunteer with the female-led platform Empoword Journalism. Having completed stints as a screen editor and sports editor, Kerry landed her first F1-specific editorial role with GPFans and has thoroughly enjoyed continuing to work closely with the sport ever since. The access GPFans offers Kerry has allowed her to interview big names such as Naomi Schiff and David Coulthard and given her experiences she could only have dreamt of as a young F1 fan.

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F1 FIA Kimi Antonelli Martin Brundle Hungarian Grand Prix Sky Sports F1