FIA reveal findings into Sepang formation-lap chaos and confirm when new fix will be released
Kieran is a freelance Formula 1 journalist for GPblog, covering breaking news, live race blogs and feature content across the F1 calendar. An NQJ-qualified journalist with more than a decade of experience, he has previously written for publications including MailOnline, the Manchester Evening News and the Eastern Daily Press.
The FIA has explained the cause of the power loss issues that delayed the start of the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, confirming that wet-weather power unit software will be revised again ahead of the United States Grand Prix.
A number of drivers suffered power loss during the formation laps at Sepang, leading to the race start procedure being suspended. The FIA has now completed a review, identifying the issue as an unintended consequence of the 250kW power reduction used in certain areas of the circuit.
According to the governing body, cars running at low engine revs in those sectors could lose more power than intended. Crucially, that power could not be recovered while the cars remained in those parts of the track.
The FIA said: “The review concluded that some cars running on low engine RPM in certain circuit sectors where a 250kW power reduction was applied experienced a loss of power beyond the original intent and that could not be recovered in those sectors.”
FIA confirms Singapore solution and further US update
ADVERTISEMENT
The software configuration used at Sepang will be reinstated for the Singapore Grand Prix if similar weather conditions are expected. Thunderstorms are forecasted for Sunday, posing an immediate test to the FIA's fix implemented at Sepang.
A further update to the wet-weather software is then scheduled to be introduced for the United States Grand Prix on October 25.
The FIA also rejected suggestions that the software had not been tested before being used in Malaysia. It stated that teams and manufacturers had completed simulation work before the package was trialled during FP1 at both the Belgian and Dutch Grands Prix.
A timeline of events was also issued for the events at the Bahrain Grand Prix. After the race start procedure was suspended at 15:45 local time following two formation laps due to the power issues, the FIA said its technical team identified the cause within five minutes and released an updated software configuration.
The FIA provided further guidance at 16:03, before teams and power unit manufacturers completed the integration process by 16:20. The 10 minute signal for race start was given at 16:22, before the cars left the pit lane at 16:33.
ADVERTISEMENT
The FIA said it will continue working with teams, manufacturers and the standard ECU supplier to improve testing and verification, recognising that opportunities to test such software in representative conditions are limited.
Don’t miss GPblog in Google
Mark us as a preferred source and our articles will appear more often at the top of Top Stories.
Add as a preferred / source on Google
