Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton likened the effects of a software bug that affected multiple cars before the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia to a “Lego race”.
The problem led to several cars, including those of the two multiple world champions who were sharing the front row of the grid, not working in the wet conditions that preceded the race.
A tropical downpour delayed attempts to get the grand prix under way for the best part of an hour. And when the cars set off on formation laps behind a safety car to test the conditions, audiences were treated to the bizarre sight of many of them struggling to move.
A bug in the software that mandates how the engines’ electrical power can be used in wet conditions had been triggered by a combination of low engine speeds, low grip and specific aspects of the circuit layout.
Verstappen, who went on to take a dominant win that was his first victory of the year, said: “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.”
Verstappen was referring to a show run in battery-powered Lego F1 cars that was held before the British Grand Prix in July.
Hamilton, sitting beside Verstappen in the post-race news conference after finishing third, interjected to say: “Yeah, we had the same speed. I had to stop on track and stop the car and engine and restart it. I’ve never done that before.”
Verstappen added: “It was insane. Like, it’s the Lego power. At some point we were five-wide on the straight because we couldn’t understand what was going on.
“Then we did a lap and then I see eight other cars crawling still, and I saw you (Hamilton) by yourself crawling. That’s not what you want, right, for the sport.”
Mercedes driver George Russell, who retired from the race with an engine failure, said: “It didn’t feel very F1.”
Nikolas Tombazis, the single-seater director for governing body the FIA said there would be a full investigation.
The issue arose, he added, because, while the software had been tested, it had not been tested in these specific conditions. Largely because there has been so little running in the wet this year.
“Cars are complicated,” Tombazis said. “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.
“We haven’t done a full debrief of the situation and see how we can avoid such an issue. Every race, we have a long debrief afterwards, where we identify criticalities.
“Obviously, that was a major criticality, and we need to make sure we avoid it. Can I guarantee it will never happen again? This specific problem, yes. A problem, no, but we will do our best to avoid it, of course.”
This is far from the first issue created by the huge complexity of the latest hybrid engines introduced this year, with their near 50-50 split between internal combustion and electrical power.
Because the engines are fundamentally energy starved, and so cannot deploy their full combined power output at all times, a series of complexities were added into the management of the engines to try to sticking-plaster solutions.
Many of these led to the counter-intuitive driving about which many of the sport’s stars have been complaining all season – and more changes have been added since.
Off-track conversation has been dominated by this all year, and rules are changing for next year to alter the energy split to try to ameliorate the issue.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said: “What happened at the start obviously is not ideal in terms of presentation of the sport.
“But at the same time it is the first year of new regulations, quite complex from a regulatory point of view, and it was also the first time we started in such conditions.
“So we have to concede that F1 has done an excellent job in making some new regulations that came with some question marks from a power-unit behaviour point of view when it came to racing for instance.
“We have to acknowledge there has been really good work to make the show and racing work, and if there are some glitches occasionally, we have to accept they are glitches for everyone, be supportive and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
The problem had a secondary consequence – the field order was jumbled up, and one reading of the rules could have meant the grid order should change for any restart.
But while the FIA’s software engineers were rewriting the code as fast as possible, it was determined that, as this situation had never occurred before, and as the problem was out of any competitor’s control, the most appropriate order was to revert to the original grid.
Mercedes deputy team principal Bradley Lord said: “If you think of the millions of people watching around the world, they tune in for the start and suddenly the cars are all in a jumbled up order because of something that happened 40 minutes earlier and it was behind a safety car on a formation lap. That would have been a much harder thing to explain than resetting and then going from where we did.”
