FIA explains: This is why many cars suddenly stalled at the Sepang start

What a Formula 1 race! First, heavy rain delayed the start of the Bahrain Grand Prix, which was held in Malaysia this year as a one-off. And then, just when it seemed dry enough, another problem suddenly cropped up: several cars suddenly came to a standstill on the track whilst making their way to the starting grid behind the safety car!

Start aborted because the cars broke down

Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari), the eventual race winner Max Verstappen (Red Bull Racing) and several other cars, including Haas and Cadillac with Ferrari engines, reported problems and came to a brief standstill. The planned start was called off again, and all teams had to return to the pits. Everything was delayed even further; for a long time, it was unclear when the race would resume and how the cars that had broken down – and consequently fallen back – would be dealt with. In the end, following a software update, the race went ahead in the original order (you can read the full story here in the live ticker).

But what on earth was going on? How can Formula 1 cars suddenly just come to a standstill one after the other? Nikolas Tombazis is Head of Single-Seaters at the FIA, making him one of the senior technical officials at the world governing body. He explained after the race: “In wet conditions, for safety reasons, there are a number of different software settings for the cars to reduce power from maximum to a lower level in certain sections. And this year we’ve had very few sessions in wet weather – almost none at all – so perhaps this hadn’t been adequately tested.” The Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia was the first truly wet session. Formula 1 was thus breaking new ground – and it turned out to be even more chaotic than had already been feared.

Tombazis: “We develop this software in collaboration with the teams. It is a standardised software package for all cars.” So there is no variation in software depending on the engine manufacturer.

A chain of events

Tombazis on the bizarre mass stall: “Essentially, there was a chain of events linking these software settings to the fact that some cars were driving incredibly slowly during the formation lap. This caused a sort of software glitch that prevented these cars from accelerating again and returning to normal speeds. As a result, quite a few cars were affected by this problem, which led to them coming to a standstill.” And the start was abandoned, with all cars having to return to the pits under a red flag. At least that went smoothly.

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Tombazis: “Afterwards, of course, we had to think about the restart, as the regulations don’t cover this specific scenario in detail: some cars had completed only one formation lap, others two, so many cars weren’t in their correct positions. That isn’t provided for in the regulations. We had to rely on common sense and fairness. It wasn’t the fault of any of these teams or drivers that they faced this problem. It would therefore have been extremely unfair if they’d had to start from the back of the field, so we had to rearrange the starting grid.” So we put everyone back where they belonged.

Software update delayed the start again

Tombazis: “As soon as the problems arose during the formation lap, we identified the issue very quickly and provided the teams with updated software. It took about 20 minutes for the software to be made available. After some discussions, the teams had to update the software on the cars; they still had a few questions, and we had to ensure that everyone had completed this work. So all of that took perhaps about 20 minutes, and that was precisely the reason for the delay at the second start.” After that, however, the cars ran without any problems.