FIA TO INTRODUCE FURTHER F1 SOFTWARE UPDATE AFTER FARCICAL START TO SEPANG RACE

The FIA's 2026 power unit software turned the Sepang formation lap into a parking lot. Red Bull-Ford, Ferrari and Audi entries slowed to a crawl when the governing body's power restriction code — designed to cap output at different points around the lap — triggered unintended power loss in sectors with a 250kW reduction. Race control abandoned the start, patched the software trackside in five minutes, and sent the field back out 37 minutes later.

The FIA insists the code was tested during FP1 at Spa and Zandvoort, but simulation didn't catch what wet-weather RPM profiles exposed under race conditions. Singapore gets the same Sepang configuration if rain threatens; a more robust update lands at the United States Grand Prix on October 25. That's the Austin round, where American fans will find out whether the FIA's on-the-fly fix holds or whether the sport's most complex technical regulation in a generation still has gremlins lurking in the wet.