Formula One was thrown into chaos on Sunday when a software bug stopped several cars on the formation lap of the Bahrain Grand Prix at Sepang in Malaysia. Heavy rain had delayed the start by about 40 minutes. On the formation lap behind the safety car, Lewis Hamilton, starting second for Ferrari, crawled around and briefly stopped. ‘I’m pressing the throttle and nothing’s happening,’ Hamilton told his team over the radio. The team replied that it was investigating a software problem. Polesitter Max Verstappen also briefly lost acceleration before recovering. Several Ferrari-powered cars suffered similar problems. Race control threw a red flag and sent the field to the pit lane. FIA technical chief Nikolas Tombazis said a bug in the wet-weather energy management software cut power at very low speeds. The FIA issued an updated software release during the delay, and the original grid order was restored. The race was relocated to Sepang because of the Iran war, F1’s first event there since 2017. Verstappen went on to win in the rain. The FIA said the issue had not been detected in testing, and that it would conduct a full review with the teams and engine makers.