Mess in Sepang: several F1 cars suffer a blackout in the wet before the start of the Bahrain GP
The new engine rules 2026with the engine having 50% electrical power compared to the total, debuted in rain this Sunday in Sepang after a huge and forceful storm that severely hit the Sepang circuit, in the F1 Bahrain GP which is disputed in Malaysiawhich caused the formation return to be delayed by 40 minutes. But when the cars started up, trouble arose: many cars were strangely stopped due to some software hiccup that affected cars of different brands and engines.
The water must have affected some part of the system of several racing cars, although the reason and explanation for such a disaster is still unknown.
On the training lap, Isaac Hadjar He went off the track after suffering a whiplash while accelerating on the wet asphalt. Until then, everything was normal, but right after, Max Verstappen warned that something was happening in his car. I couldn’t accelerate due to some problem. Max, poleman, was the first car after the safety car and everyone had to brake. The cars came together, there were position changes that shouldn’t have happened after the safety car, but then more similar problems came.
Lewis Hamilton seemed to have the same setback. He had to let other cars pass and stop his Ferrari in the middle of the track. “I have a software problem,” said Lewiswho restarted his car in the middle of the asphalt to start again. But there was more: Bortoleto, Hülkenberg, Ocon, Pérez and Lindblad Some of them also stopped in the middle of the straight line.
And faced with such madness, race management had to suspend the starting procedure and delay the start of the race again.
“It is most likely that the original grid order will be used to start the race,” the FIA said. after that, although without yet a clear explanation of what happened in the cars’ software in the first real race test on water of these new 2026 cars.
