The FIA has confirmed that a human error was the cause of a problem during the sprint qualifying of the Singapore GP, which added to a malfunction in the timing system that prevented some drivers from recording their times.
The SQ1 session was interrupted by a red flag after Sergio Pérez crashed into the barrier at Turn 5. After retrieving his vehicle, Pérez lost the front wing, forcing race control to stop activities to clean up debris from the track.
Once the session was restarted, two anomalies occurred: some lap times were not recorded and several drivers complained of having less power than expected. These complaints led to the belief that the problem was related to a programming error similar to that which occurred in the past Bahrain GP.
Driver Carlos Sainz, who was eliminated in SQ1, expressed his discontent: ‘We only managed to do one lap. We had some issues with the brakes. Moreover, half a dozen cars completed the lap with a engine half a second faster than the others. There was another software problem and we were the most affected.’
However, the FIA clarified that the error was not software-related, but a human error in activating the Overtake Mode, which provides drivers with an extra boost of power. ‘During the first phase of the sprint qualifying, there was a human error in race control that was not related to the timing issue.’ This error resulted in the Overtake Mode not being available during the resumption after the red flag, temporarily activating for 27 seconds before deactivating again.
The FIA has acknowledged that this error affected the performance of certain vehicles, depending on their position on the track. The second and third phases of the qualifying were not affected.
Although it is not related to a software error, this incident adds to a series of setbacks that have marked competitions recently, including the Bahrain GP, where vehicles lost electric power in rainy conditions after a single formation lap.
Written by FormulaRapidaAI
SourceID: SRC_013b8df08fa195758e3ad546830db430d87bf61a