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F1 Malaysia Race Delayed by Software Bug
Confirmed
In Short: A software bug caused chaos at the start of the first wet-weather race of the 2026 Formula 1 season in Malaysia.
The start of the first wet-weather race of the 2026 Formula 1 season in Malaysia descended into chaos due to a software bug.
FIA single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis confirmed that a bug in the software supplied by the FIA and developed with the teams was responsible for the chaos.
The bug was triggered by low engine speeds, low grip, and specific aspects of the circuit layout, causing cars to slow down and almost come to a standstill during the formation lap.
Tombazis explained that the software had not been tested in the conditions behind the safety car, leading to the unexpected issue.
The FIA quickly released new software to resolve the situation, allowing the race to start after a 40-minute delay.
Drivers described the initial chaos as a 'Lego race,' with some cars losing all speed and others stopping completely.
Red Bull's Max Verstappen likened the situation to a show run in battery-powered Lego F1 cars before the British Grand Prix.
Mercedes driver George Russell said, “It didn't feel very F1,” highlighting the unusual nature of the event.
The FIA and teams will undertake a full review of the issue to prevent similar problems in the future.
Despite the chaos, the race eventually started, with Verstappen delivering a dominant win.
What this adds
The software bug affected multiple cars during the formation lap, causing significant delays and confusion.
The FIA's quick response to release new software highlights the importance of adaptability in managing such unexpected issues.
What's confirmed
- “We didn't manage to test the software as extensively as we would have liked because there's been very little wet running this year. There was a bit of a combination of circumstances which caused this bug to kick in,” Tombazis said during an impromptu media session post-race.
- Although the software required for this was tested by several teams, including Red Bull and Racing Bulls, it was not tested in the conditions behind the safety car – and therefore not at these extremely low speeds.
- FIA single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis confirmed to media including Autosport that a bug in the software supplied by the FIA and developed together with the teams over the course of multiple years was responsible for the chaos.
- A one-millisecond software bug crashed a computer system that manages airspace over the United Kingdom, leading to flight chaos and thousands of cancellations as engineers scrambled to get the system back up and running on September 8, a new report has found.
- Instead, the cause of the outage was a bug that had been in the software, potentially for years, reared its ugly head when a chain of “very specific events” occurred simultaneously.
- The FIA then had to react quickly to get the race near Kuala Lumpur under way after all, as Tombazis explained when asked by Autosport.
- Race control was forced to stop the formation lap with a red flag, after which there was a 40-minute delay before fans actually got to see some F1 action.
What's still developing
- You may have heard about the “software bug” which caused the chaos that forced the start of Formula 1’s Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia to be aborted, but what is the bug and how exactly did it cause so much drama?
- The FIA resolved the situation by sending software to all of the teams to download and install on their power units before the race was properly started.
- “Just to be clear, the software is developed by the FIA in collaboration with the teams. It's part of the standard code that we have that is common to all the cars,” Tombazis said.
- The entire power unit software has been developed for the last three to four years, producing “a huge list of issues found by the teams” that prompted multiple updates before the 2026 season started - but this issue slipped through.
- As an emergency measure, the FIA released new software that removed the 250kW restraint in those sectors so there was some MGU-K power to allow them to circulate in those sections at low speeds.
- It was simply related to the speeds reached in certain minisectors.
- 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.
- An entertaining race started an hour and half late following rain and computation delays Mercedes better 'watch out - Verstappen 'imperious' in Bahrain GP win "Amazing" was the word Verstappen chose to describe his and Red Bull's first win of the 2026 season at a chaotic, bizarre and, in some ways, unprecedented race.
- He duly delivered a dominant win, which barely looked in doubt even through the chaos of a delayed start, software glitches caused by a bug in the mandated FIA engine settings that wreaked havoc for him and several other drivers on a formation lap, losing the lead to the two Mercedes off the line and a late safety car period.
- The FIA’s on-site technical department quickly recognised the issue and wrote that code, a “cobbled-up, hurried solution”, by Tombazis’s own admission, so the race could get underway.
- This meant the race was delayed for over 45 minutes and led to complaints from F1 drivers who described it as “horrible” and evidence that F1 has become “too complicated”.
- The bug was in a computer system known as the “National Airspace System” (NAS, which assigns call signs or ‘squawk codes’ to airlines on a radar system.