A Bahrain GP red flag halts the relocated race at Sepang before a single competitive lap is completed. Heavy tropical rain sweeps over the circuit beforehand. Several teams then report power unit trouble as drivers try to get moving on a flooded track.
Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton are among the drivers caught out. Both report a lack of acceleration almost as soon as the field sets off. They crawl along before their cars respond again. Liam Lawson, Gabriel Bortoleto and Valtteri Bottas struggle with similar problems elsewhere in the pack.
Race control suspends the start procedure rather than risk sending cars out in those conditions. When the laps resume, the original grid order stands. A new start time of 16:33 local is confirmed, a delay of 50 minutes on the original schedule.
Detailed First Half Narrative
The build up to the race already carries an edge of tension. Sepang sits under a tropical storm system for much of the afternoon. The skies open not long before the cars are due to form up on the grid. Our Sepang return preview had already flagged the circuit’s weather as a factor teams would need to manage this weekend.
As the pack pulls away for the formation laps, the rain keeps falling heavily. Visibility drops fast. Spray hangs over the track for long stretches, and the surface turns treacherous almost immediately. Engineers up and down the pit lane start checking telemetry the moment irregular speeds appear on their screens.
Verstappen’s Red Bull is one of the first to show symptoms. He reports a lack of acceleration almost from the moment he tries to pull away. For a short spell his car barely moves faster than walking pace. Hamilton’s Ferrari suffers an almost identical issue. He too crawls around the opening part of the lap before his power finally returns.
Lawson, Bortoleto and Bottas all appear to hit the same wall further down the field. The problem spreads across more than one team. It quickly becomes clear that race control has a decision to make. As set out in the relocated race preview, Sepang’s switch to hosting this event was always going to be a test for everyone involved.
A red flag before a race has even properly started is unusual. It stops the whole procedure, not just one car. Drivers are told to slow down and prepare to head back towards the grid, while engineers and stewards work out how to get the session moving again safely.
Detailed Second Half Narrative & Drama
With several frontrunners reporting the same fault, the Bahrain GP red flag becomes close to inevitable. Race control opts to suspend the start procedure rather than let drivers keep circulating in cars that are clearly not responding normally. The red flag is shown while order is restored.
The stoppage buys time. Teams get a chance to check their cars properly, and race control can assess conditions that show little sign of easing. Autosport’s report on the stoppage captures the scale of the disruption, with several cars affected inside the space of a single lap.
Crucially for anyone following the running order, race control confirms the race will resume from the original starting positions. That is the order that counts, not whatever shape the field took during the aborted laps. It removes any doubt about who lines up where once things get back under way.
It’s a frustrating wait for drivers who were already strapped in and ready to go. Given how suddenly several cars lost power on a flooded track, though, the delay looks the safer option. A related Motorsport.com report describes the same sequence of events from inside the Sepang paddock.
It isn’t the first headline Verstappen’s garage has made this year. We looked separately at the software glitch story earlier in the season, though there is nothing in today’s reporting to connect the two incidents. Once the chequered flag eventually falls at Sepang, the result will be covered in our race win report.
For now, the paddock simply waits. Mechanics go back over wiring looms and power unit settings. Drivers sit in their motorhomes rather than their cockpits, with the grid reset and the clock ticking down towards the restart.
Player Ratings (home side)
This is a grand prix rather than a two team match, so there’s no home and away split to lean on. We’ve grouped the ratings instead by how each driver is affected, starting with the two championship contenders caught up in the chaos at the front.
Max Verstappen (6/10)
Verstappen’s Red Bull loses drive almost as soon as he tries to pull away for the formation laps. He crawls along well below racing speed for several seconds while the rest of the field pulls clear ahead of him. He stays calm, waits for the power to return and loses no further ground once it does, though the scare is real and costs him ground he has to claw back.
Lewis Hamilton (6/10)
Hamilton suffers an almost identical problem in his Ferrari, inching around the opening part of the lap while quicker cars peel away around him. His power eventually returns and he avoids any contact with those behind. The lack of acceleration leaves him exposed on the wet track for longer than he would like, with little he can do but sit it out.
Player Ratings (opponent)
The second group covers the drivers further down the order who report the same fault. It’s a reminder that the problem isn’t limited to the two biggest names on the grid.
Liam Lawson (6/10)
Lawson is caught by the same loss of power that hits the frontrunners, and his car slows sharply during the formation laps. He keeps it moving rather than stopping outright, nursing it along until the response returns. The red flag arrives before the problem can cost him any further ground on the road.
Gabriel Bortoleto (6/10)
Bortoleto also reports trouble getting his car to respond normally on the soaked track, mirroring the issues further up the field. He loses pace at a similar point in the lap to the others affected. Like them, he benefits from race control’s call to stop the session rather than risk continuing with a car that isn’t behaving properly.
Valtteri Bottas (6/10)
Bottas rounds out the list of drivers struggling for acceleration during the laps, adding to the sense that this is a wider issue rather than an isolated fault. He manages to keep his car rolling through the worst of it. The red flag gives his team a chance to check everything over before the race eventually gets back under way.
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