The Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix race began and ended with drama following a heavy downpour just before the start. The situation became chaotic when the cars driven by Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc, Valtteri Bottas, and Oliver Bearman stalled unexpectedly during the formation lap. The race was halted for over an hour, and the International Automobile Federation (FIA) issued an official statement explaining the cause.
According to the FIA, a bug in the system used by the F1 cars caused a sudden loss of engine power. The system limits power to the MGU-K (Motor Generator Unit-Kinetic)—which supplies electric power—to 250kW during wet conditions, down from the standard 350kW.
While navigating Turn 9, the MGU-K power was cut off; however, the combination of slow vehicle speeds and low turbo pressure caused the engines of several cars to stall suddenly.
The software is designed to disable the MGU-K for 60 minutes in specific situations for safety reasons and to prevent cheating. In yesterday's incident, however, this caused the cars to remain stalled, necessitating a restart of the race. For the first time, the FIA deployed an emergency software update at the track to resolve the bug, and the race only resumed after this was completed.
This marked the first time in F1 history that a vehicle system bug caused a race delay requiring a software update to fix. It highlights that modern F1 cars—unlike the analog race cars of the Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill, and Alain Prost era—are susceptible to software issues just like any other vehicle.
