F1’s Malaysia Farce: The Rain Broke The Software, But A 20-Minute Delay Fixed It

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On the warm-up lap at Sepang, before the race even began, multiple cars suddenly lost all power and rolled to a stop on track.

Think of it like a phone that freezes mid-call.

Except the phone costs RM80 million, is doing 60km/h in a tropical downpour, and 20 of them froze at the same time.

The FIA confirmed four things hit simultaneously: the cars were moving unusually slowly, the track was wet and slippery, the engines were in rain-saving mode, and Sepang’s track layout triggered the problem at exactly the wrong moment.

None of those four things is dangerous on its own.

Together, at a circuit that was not even on the original 2026 race calendar eight weeks earlier, they produced a scenario nobody had ever tested for.

Here is what the software was doing: modern F1 cars carry a hybrid battery system that deploys electrical power in strict measured doses across specific sections of the track.

Sepang has two very long straights connected by slow, tight corners, with a middle section that offers no real braking — meaning no natural opportunity for the battery to recharge.

When the cars crawled through those sections in the rain at a fraction of their normal speed, the software took too long to account for it, assumed something illegal was happening, and cut the power entirely as a precaution.

Race control stopped everything; all 20 cars returned to the pit lane.

The Rain Did What Testing Could Not

The FIA’s technical team deleted the power restriction across the problem sections of the track and sent an updated software file to every team.

The only reason there was time to do this: it was already raining so heavily before the warm-up lap that the race had been delayed once already.

That delay — the one everyone was complaining about — was the window that made the fix possible.

The FIA confirmed the problem was not found during pre-season testing. It was not found on the laps to the grid.

It was found when it happened, live, in front of a full grandstand.

A full investigation involving every engine manufacturer is now underway.

The Fix That Saved The Race Also Handed It To Verstappen

When the software patch removed the power restrictions, it did so equally for every competitor.

Red Bull, which had struggled with the complex new hybrid constraints all season, suddenly had a level playing field without the software artificially miscalculating their pace in the slow sectors.

The long delay had also dried the track.

Mercedes had the better car in wet conditions, and Kimi Antonelli and George Russell were ahead of Verstappen when the race finally started.

Red Bull brought Verstappen in for dry-weather tyres during the first safety car period, while the track was still half-wet.

The gamble only worked because Sepang’s unusually wide racing surface — a signature of the original 1999 circuit design — gave Verstappen enough dry patches of tarmac to keep the tyres from overheating while he hunted down the leaders.

He passed Antonelli, and Russell’s engine failed five laps from the end.

Verstappen won, ahead of Antonelli and Hamilton, for the first victory of his 2026 season.

The rain created the delay, the delay enabled the patch, the patch started the race, and the wide track won it.

READ MORE: Sepang Said No Big Cameras At The F1, Then Some Gates Let Them In Anyway

READ MORE: [Watch] Train To Busan At Sepang: Bahrain Planned For 37,000, Malaysia Sent 100,000

READ MORE: Malaysians Test Their Fortitude As Queues To Get Into Sepang Begin

READ MORE: You Cannot Watch F1 From The Roadside At Sepang, PMX Said Watch RTM Instead

Parts of this story have been sourced from Sky Sports and Formula 1.

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F1’s Malaysia Farce: The Rain Broke The Software, But A 20-Minute Delay Fixed It
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