The start of the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia has been delayed twice due to heavy rain and technical problems with several cars.
The original start was put back by 40 minutes after heavy rain struck the Sepang International Circuit. The rain began to fall as drivers left the pit lane for their pre-race reconnaissance laps.Once the surface water cleared, race control sent the field away behind the Safety Car for at least two formation laps.
However trouble began when pole-winner Max Verstappen slowed significantly at turn 13. “I can’t accelerate,” he told race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase, “not working, guys.”
While the Safety Car drew away, the remainder of the field came almost to a stop behind Verstappen. Eventually the Red Bull driver got going again, but now Lewis Hamilton in second place was moving at a crawl.
Several drivers passed Hamilton, while others held back, either out of hesitation or because they too were experiencing technical problems. Meanwhile the Safety Car, with Verstappen now close behind again, was beginning to catch the rest of the field.
In the confusion, Hamilton briefly came to a complete stop, then pulled away again and got back up to speed. Other cars also began to slow significantly.
As the Safety Car drew within sight of the back of the field, race control made the call to suspend the start at 3:45pm local time. They later announced the race would resume at 4:33pm local time and the original grid order would be used.
Mercedes deputy team principal Bradley Lord confirmed the delay had been caused by a software problem. The FIA issued an update to the teams in order to prevent a repeat.
“All the teams have been sent some new parameters to load into the cars as well which is happening up and down the grid,” he told Sky during the hiatus. “There may have been something, a sort of software issue of some kind that was behind some of the difficulties we saw earlier.”
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