Sainz: F1 must face hard truths after Bahrain software farce delays start

Carlos Sainz says Formula 1 “needs to have a hard look at” itself after a software glitch stalled cars and delayed Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix by an hour and a half.

The Williams driver, who is also a director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, the drivers’ collective body, spoke after the FIA confirmed a “full review” of the failure BBC Sport. The start was abandoned. New code was rushed out. The race finally began 90 minutes late.

The fault lay in the wet-weather engine map, the pre-set software that governs how the petrol engine and battery work together. A number of cars could barely move on the formation laps, the slow laps drivers complete before lining up on the grid. Race control had no choice but to call it off and wait for a fix.

Anger spread quickly. Lando Norris, Sainz, Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll all criticised the handling of the delay in wet conditions, with drivers describing the afternoon as “horrible”, “sad” and “totally unacceptable” ESPN. The words were blunt. The frustration was shared across teams.

The numbers explain why the bug bit so hard. This year’s rules split power almost 50-50 between internal combustion and electric power. At full deployment the cars produce about 1,000bhp. When the batteries run out, that falls to only 540bhp. In the wet, electrical power is cut further, from 350kW (470bhp) to 250kW (335bhp), and the batteries fully deploy and recharge several times per lap.

There had been very little wet running this year, so the exact conditions that triggered the fault had simply never come up before. That is the FIA’s initial explanation for how the bug slipped through testing and into a race weekend.

Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies said complexity should not get out of hand. He expects talks between the teams, the FIA and Formula 1 on how to stop a repeat.

The roots run deeper. The 50-50 split was settled five or six years ago, and teams have warned the FIA about the risks since at least 2023. The balance will shift to 60-40 in favour of internal combustion in two steps by 2028. FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem had initially pushed for a return to naturally aspirated V8 engines with no hybrid element at all. The current likeliest direction is a V8 turbo with 15-25% electrical power, used mostly as a push-to-pass system, a short burst of extra power to aid overtaking.

For fans, this means Sunday was about more than a late start. Lights-out is meant to be precise. This time the machines could not even get there.