How Verstappen's slow formation lap set off the FIA's 60-second lockdown at Sepang
· Yahoo Sports
Max Verstappen was the first driver to lose power on the formation laps of the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia. New details show his car hit an anti-cheat safeguard at Turn 9 that locked the electrics out for 60 seconds. They also explain why the bug caught some cars and not others.
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The FIA has already explained the basics of the software failure, but there was more to it. Verstappen was the first to struggle for power while running slowly behind the safety car. Lewis Hamilton then came to a standstill, and several other cars followed.
Turn 9 was where it started
The problem goes back to the wet-weather engine mode as rain-affected running uses a mandated alternative mode that caps electrical deployment at 250kW, compared with a maximum of 350kW in the dry.
For safety reasons, that 250kW reduction applies in certain sectors of the lap. One of them is the Turn 9 left-hander at Sepang, which is where the trouble began. At that corner the electrical power does not have to be ramped down gradually, so the MGU-K can switch off completely in an instant.
When the cars slowed to a crawl behind the safety car, boost pressure began to fall. With the MGU-K already switched off, nothing could make up the difference.
An anti-cheat lockdown that also cut the engine
This is the point where the bug kicked in. It sent the cars into a mode called 'continuous offset'. This is a 60-second emergency lockdown introduced this season to stop teams from deliberately shutting down the MGU-K, and it can also cut power from the internal combustion engine.
Without electrical power to cover the turbo lag of the current cars, drivers pressed the throttle and nothing happened.
One question is still open: why the combustion engine died too, when that should not happen at such low speeds - and the FIA does not have a formal answer yet. Its early reading is that the bug sent all throttle input into recharging the MGU-K. That matches what Haas driver Oliver Bearman described: a throttle pedal that felt disconnected while the engine just idled.
Tombazis: Mercedes-powered cars had no technical advantage
Because the problem moved through the field unevenly, it looked as though some manufacturers had been hit harder than others.
FIA single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis said this came down to circumstance, not technology. He linked the uneven spread to Verstappen's pace at the front:
Not all cars reached the same low speeds on the formation lap. There was a bit of a concertina effect. I think Max slowed down quite a lot, being at the front, and then some cars braked harder as they were surprised and so on. That caused some cars to experience the problem and some others to not experience it.
The emergency fix targeted the same weak spot and the software update lifted the energy limits in the affected minisectors and overrode the automatic power reductions there.