Paddock Unfiltered 02 – Sepang – 2026
We all love Formula 1 because it is supposed to be the absolute pinnacle of motorsport. The fastest cars. The smartest engineers. Some of the most advanced technology in the world.
And then, at Sepang, we had multiple F1 cars basically stop working because of a software bug.
Not because a driver crashed.
Not because an engine exploded.
Not because the weather was impossible to drive in.
Because the software didn’t know what to do.
And yes, I understand that what happened was incredibly specific. The combination of extremely low speeds behind the Safety Car, low grip, wet-weather energy settings and the layout of Sepang created a situation the system hadn’t properly accounted for. The FIA has admitted that the software had not been tested in those exact conditions.
But that’s exactly why I find this so difficult to accept.
This is Formula 1.
Rain is not some completely unknown phenomenon.
Cars driving slowly behind a Safety Car are not some completely unknown phenomenon.
Wet-weather settings are not something the FIA suddenly invented on Sunday.
And yet Max Verstappen suddenly had no power. Lewis Hamilton eventually had to stop his car, shut it down and restart it. Other cars were crawling around the circuit. And then the race had to wait while the FIA prepared and distributed a software update to the cars.
These are multimillion-dollar Formula 1 cars, operated by some of the biggest manufacturers and engineering organisations in the world. Drivers are sitting in cars capable of more than 300 km/h — and suddenly they’re creeping around Sepang hoping the software decides to give them power again.
And then we waited.
Not because the rain was too heavy.
Not because the track was too dangerous.
Because the cars needed a software update.
Max even joked that Red Bull had a very fast connection because of their Oracle partnership, while the teams were waiting for the software to be transferred. Funny? Absolutely.
But also… what are we doing here?
I don’t think the answer is to simply say, “Technology failed, it happens.”
Because technology is now such a massive part of Formula 1 that the technology has to be held to the same standard as everything else.
The FIA has already announced a full investigation, and that’s the right thing to do.
But the biggest question for me isn’t just “How did the bug happen?”
It’s:
How did nobody find this before race day?
If the software is responsible for controlling how these cars deploy electrical power in wet conditions, then testing it only in conditions that don’t reproduce what actually happens behind a Safety Car clearly isn’t enough.
The 2026 regulations were supposed to push F1 further into the future.
Instead, for about an hour at Sepang, the world’s most technologically advanced racing series looked like it needed to turn it off and turn it back on again.
And honestly?
That’s not something Formula 1 should ever have to explain to its fans.
The race itself ended up being brilliant. Verstappen took the win, Kimi Antonelli finished second and Lewis Hamilton somehow recovered from the chaos to take P3.
But that doesn’t erase what happened before the lights went out.
The pinnacle of motorsport should be allowed to make mistakes.
It just shouldn’t be making mistakes that look this avoidable.
🙂