FIA to review power losses that disrupted Bahrain GP start

The FIA will conduct a full review with Formula 1 teams and power-unit manufacturers after power losses during the wet formation laps disrupted the start of the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia.

Rain delayed the scheduled start, and the cars emerged from the pit lane behind the safety car about 40 minutes after the scheduled time. Max Verstappen reported a lack of acceleration from his Red Bull. RacingNews365 reported that Lewis Hamilton, Esteban Ocon and Valtteri Bottas stopped on track before getting going again; Autosport said Liam Lawson and Gabriel Bortoleto also appeared to struggle. Race control suspended the start procedure under a red flag.

The stoppage scrambled the field order. The BBC reported that one reading of the rules could have changed the restart grid, but the original grid was restored because the situation was unprecedented and outside any competitor’s control.

During the red-flag delay, the FIA removed the energy-limit constraint in affected sectors through an updated software release sent to all competitors, allowing teams to adjust their power units before the start. Autosport described the sector-specific override as an emergency measure; the race got under way without another similar problem.

After the race, Verstappen said: “It was like the Lego race.” Hamilton said: “I had to stop on track and stop the car and engine and restart it.”

The FIA attributed the unintended losses to an unprecedented combination of low engine speed, low-grip conditions, wet-weather energy-management settings and Sepang’s sector configuration. After the race, FIA single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis explained that cars bunched behind the safety car as the pace fell, with some almost stopping. At those very low speeds, he said, a software loop prevented power from being redeployed, leaving some cars unable to accelerate again.

Sepang was the 2026-spec cars’ first wet formation lap in competition; earlier wet running had taken place in Pirelli tyre tests or pre-season shakedowns. Autosport reported that several teams had tested the software, but not behind the safety car at such low speeds. The FIA said it and the teams had not detected the issue during testing or on the laps to the grid.

Autosport reported that Mercedes-powered cars initially appeared less affected. Tombazis said there was no technical reason for that pattern: cars had reached different speeds in particular mini-sectors. The report also said the FIA had no formal answer at that point for why the internal-combustion engine was affected too; the suggestion that the fault diverted throttle input to recharge the MGU-K, F1’s kinetic-energy recovery unit, was only an initial theory.

Tombazis said the specific problem would not happen again, although he could not guarantee that no other problem would occur.