Oscar Piastri labelled Carlos Sainz's collision with him at the Hungarian Grand Prix as "unacceptable," saying the Williams driver should take a "look in the mirror" given his criticism of other drivers in the past.
Piastri was in a crucial moment in the battle for the lead of the race with teammate Lando Norris when he approached Fernando Alonso and Sainz, who were both a lap down, while they were fighting over 14th place.
Sainz attempted to pass Alonso around the outside of Turn 2 as the McLaren closed in on them, but when he failed to make the move stick he cut back across the path of Piastri ahead of Turn 3 and the pair collided, with Piastri taking to the grass.
The Australian felt the collision was the key reason he lost the lead of the race to Norris -- who pitted a lap later and came out ahead of Piastri -- and after the race held Sainz entirely to blame for the contact.
"I couldn't believe what happened," Piastri said after the race. "Getting crashed into by a lapped car is never one of the things you expect that can go wrong in your race. And today it was.
"I don't really care if he didn't see me and the fact that he didn't and no one told him, or there was a lack of complete awareness, is unacceptable."
After losing the lead to Norris, Piastri went on to retire with a gearbox problem.
The stewards investigated Sainz during the race and found he was "wholly responsible" for the contact between the two cars on lap 39.
However, because Sainz had limited visibility of Piastri through Turns 2 and 3, they issued a five-second penalty rather than the standard 10-second penalty for causing a collision.
It also emerged that the automated blue light system, which warns lapped drivers of approaching cars, was not working properly during the race and did not display a message on Sainz's steering wheel.
Blue lights did appear on multiple light panels through Turns 2 and 3, but while Sainz was apologetic for the collision, he also said Piastri should have taken more care in trying to pass him in the circumstances.
"To be honest, I'm really sorry for Oscar, but this time I think I have a pretty good excuse to what happened," Sainz said. "I don't know if he could also have been a bit more careful given that he's the one fighting for podiums and he could have positioned himself a bit more cautiously because of the issues we were all having with the blue flags.
"But yeah, it's a shame, I took the 5 second, I'm okay with it, I don't care when I'm fighting for P18. But yeah, it's what it is."
Asked if he would talk to Piastri, Sainz replied: "No, I don't need this. It is a racing incident, he probably understands what happened just by knowing what happened.
"He didn't retire due to me or my fault, so it was just a contact and I'm glad it didn't disturb his race too much. But yeah, it's tough when we're all having these issues."
When Sainz's quotes were put to Piastri, the McLaren driver responded: "I mean, he was fighting Fernando for last place like it was the world championship and it cost me the lead of the race.
"So, he's quite critical of others and others have given him some stick before for being frustrating on track. And when you're going to do something like that, I think maybe you should look in the mirror a bit."
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Over team radio, Piastri also appeared to hold McLaren to blame for pitting him from the lead of the race into traffic while the pit wall left Norris out on track for longer before his second pit stop.
However, after analysing the strategy following his retirement, Piastri said he had no issue with the team's decision.
"No, I mean it was fine," he said. "When they timed my stop, that was to cover Lewis [Hamilton] and that was fine. In the moment, again, I was upset that I lost the lead of the race through no fault of my own.
"And 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, I know Lando's got his own race to try and win and there's other people.
"So, they can't just not box Lando because of something out of his control and out of my control. So, that's why I think it's fine. I was just very, very p---ed off in the moment."
