A tropical storm and a power-unit software bug paralyzed the grid during the formation laps of the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, forcing cars to crawl and bringing Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari to a complete stop before a delayed start at the Sepang International Circuit.
The Sepang International Circuit staged an unexpected return to the Formula 1 calendar under extraordinary circumstances this weekend. But the intercontinental relocation—complete with 561 visiting Bahraini marshals, Gulf Air paddock branding, and a staging cost of £3m borne by the Malaysian government—quickly took a chaotic turn when the weather broke over Kuala Lumpur.
Software Glitch Turns Formation Laps into a Crawl
A heavy tropical downpour forced a 40-minute delay before the cars finally ventured out behind the safety car to evaluate the wet track. What followed caught drivers and engineers entirely off guard. A combination of low engine speeds, minimal grip, and circuit layout peculiarities triggered a software bug in the complex 2026 hybrid power units, which rely on a delicate balance between internal combustion and electrical power.
Max Verstappen, starting from pole position, nearly stalled at the front of the pack. The sudden deceleration rippled backward, trapping drivers in a slow-motion bottleneck as the software prevented energy redeployment.
These engines are so complicated and a lot of software is implemented. I triggered [the problem] first and then I looked in my mirror, I was like, ‘Wait, are they waiting for me or what’s going [on]…?’ It was like the Lego race.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull driver, via Yahoo
Behind the leaders, the situation deteriorated further. Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari lost all power on the start-finish straight, forcing the seven-time world champion to a dead stop. When the red flag was waved, the race had been delayed significantly, with the chequered flag ultimately falling three hours and 20 minutes after the session was originally scheduled to begin. Verstappen noted that it felt like driving at 35 kilometres per hour while going uphill and losing speed, observing that when the RPM drops too low, the power unit simply bogs down.
I had to stop on track and stop the car and engine and restart it. I’ve never done that before.
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari driver, via RaceFans
Other competitors reported similar disarray. Championship leader Kimi Antonelli, driving for Mercedes, noted that cars were traveling five-wide down the straight simply because nobody could understand what the power units were doing. Race control summoned the field into the pit lane while software engineers scrambled to issue an emergency update, removing energy limit constraints in the affected sectors. Hamilton noted that some teams possessed faster laptops than others during the process of loading the updated code.
Nikolas Tombazis Confirms FIA Investigation into Power-Unit Behavior
Nikolas Tombazis, the single-seater director for the FIA, acknowledged that while the software had undergone testing prior to the race weekend, engineers had never evaluated it under those specific wet-weather, low-rev conditions. Because the current season has featured minimal running in the wet, the edge case went undiscovered until the formation laps. Following the incident, the FIA determined that since the situation had never occurred before and fell out of any competitor’s control, the most appropriate course of action was to revert to the original starting grid order.
Cars are complicated. We would all like it to be simpler, but when you have electrical energy and combustion energy all working together, and obviously when you want to ensure that there’s sporting fairness between the teams, that is complicated.
Nikolas Tombazis, FIA single-seater director, via Yahoo
Tombazis confirmed that the governing body will conduct a full debrief to identify criticalities and avoid future occurrences, though he noted that guaranteeing this specific software problem will never happen again is the primary objective of their ongoing engineering reviews.
Max Verstappen Dominates After the Delayed Start
Once race control resolved the software parameters and completed a lengthy delay that pushed the chequered flag three hours and 20 minutes past the original schedule, the race finally got underway. Verstappen delivered an authoritative performance out front, securing his first victory of the 2026 season. George Russell suffered a race retirement due to an engine failure.
Despite the eventual racing action, team figures expressed reservations about the presentation of the sport during the opening sequence.