Charles Leclerc’s words after the chaotic Bahrain Grand Prix at Sepang have raised a much more serious question than a simple software bug. Under certain wet and low-speed conditions, Formula 1 drivers can find themselves without full control over how much power their cars receive from the Power Unit. That turns what happened in Malaysia from a technical inconvenience into a genuine F1 2026 safety issue.
“Can these cars be driven in the wet?” The question put to Charles Leclerc after the Bahrain Grand Prix at Sepang already contains, by itself, everything Formula 1 should have the courage to address after what happened in Malaysia. The Ferrari driver’s answer was not a joke, not simply a complaint and, above all, not about the behaviour of a tyre or the aerodynamic balance of a car. It concerned something far more fundamental: whether the person behind the wheel genuinely has control of the car.
“There are definitely risks. They can be driven, yes. But there are risks: what we don’t like, and I think it’s the same for all the drivers, is that there are situations in which we don’t have control of the car and of the power we receive from the Power Unit.”
That is the sentence worth stopping on for a moment. Charles Leclerc had already warned about drivers losing control of the 2026 cars in wet conditions, and the significance goes well beyond whether the new generation of machinery is difficult to drive. If a Formula 1 driver says there are situations in which he cannot control the power arriving from the Power Unit, the matter immediately stops being merely about spectacle, reliability or software. It becomes a question of safety.
And safety, by definition, should not be something that is corrected only after the problem appears on track in front of millions of people.
The problem was not just the software bug
Sepang produced a paradoxical situation. After the start had been delayed by the rain, the cars went out behind the Safety Car for the formation laps. Max Verstappen was the first to suffer a loss of power, then Lewis Hamilton virtually came to a stop, while other drivers encountered similar problems. The procedure was interrupted and Formula 1 remained stationary for around 40 minutes while the FIA and the teams tried to understand what had happened.
The unusual episode became one of the defining moments of the 2026 Bahrain Grand Prix weekend at Sepang, even before the race itself could properly begin.
An explanation emerged later. Electrical-energy management has become an even more intrusive part of how the 2026 cars behave and, in wet conditions, the system provides for a reduction in the amount of electrical power available. At Sepang, however, an extremely particular combination of low speed, low engine revs, poor grip and energy-management logic triggered unexpected behaviour from the FIA software. In practical terms, some cars were no longer able to recover the power required to continue normally.
The FIA explained that the software had been tested, but not in that precise combination of circumstances. Technically, that is an understandable explanation. Yet precisely because it is understandable, it raises a much more uncomfortable question: why had that combination of conditions not been considered beforehand?
Formula 1 presents itself as the pinnacle of automotive technology. It therefore cannot afford to discover during a Grand Prix that a particular combination of weather conditions, engine speed and circuit configuration can disrupt the system responsible for managing a car’s power delivery.
This was not a vibrating wing, a temperature rising further than expected or a strategy turning out to be wrong. It was a situation in which, under specific circumstances, a Formula 1 car could stop responding in the way its driver expected. That changes the perspective completely.
Safety cannot depend on a software patch installed in the pit lane
Perhaps the most concerning detail is also the one most likely to be overlooked. In order for the race to take place, the FIA had to modify the software and distribute an update to the teams during the lengthy suspension of the start.
Max Verstappen recounted the situation with some irony, while Lewis Hamilton confirmed that the delay had been used specifically to install the new software on the cars. The seven-time world champion’s event had already been complicated before racing began, adding another unusual chapter to Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari season.
Formula 1 therefore had to solve a problem in real time that ideally should have been identified during the design and validation process.
This is where Charles Leclerc’s statement becomes particularly important. Put simply, the Ferrari driver was not saying the car is difficult to drive in the wet. He was not saying the Power Unit lacks performance. He was saying there are moments when the driver does not fully control what the Power Unit is delivering.
That is exactly the kind of scenario that should be simulated, stress-tested and validated before a set of technical regulations becomes competitive reality, particularly when those regulations so significantly increase the car’s dependence on electronics and automated energy management.
The broader technical characteristics of Ferrari’s SF-26 at the Malaysian venue were already visible in the post-race analysis of Ferrari’s Sepang performance, but the power-management problem affected a much more fundamental area than outright performance.
F1 2026 has shifted enormous complexity towards energy management
Formula 1’s 2026 regulations have moved a huge part of the complexity of performance towards the hybrid system, energy management and the algorithms that determine when and how that energy can be used.
The FIA is perfectly aware of the complexity it has introduced. That has also been demonstrated by changes already made during the season to energy parameters and systems intended to improve safety during starts and the behaviour of the cars in low-grip conditions.
For Ferrari in particular, the interaction between the Power Unit, energy deployment and chassis behaviour has repeatedly formed part of the season’s SF-26 technical analysis. Sepang, however, showed what happens when that complexity moves beyond performance optimisation and begins affecting the driver’s ability to predict the car’s response.
That is precisely why it is difficult to dismiss the Malaysian episode with a simple “we learned the lesson”.
The 16th race should not be the proving ground
Formula 1 reached the 16th race of the season before encountering, for the first time in real conditions, a situation in which all these systems had to operate together in the wet, at low speed and behind a Safety Car. The result was what everyone saw.
There is no need to suggest that the FIA deliberately created a dangerous situation. That would be an exaggeration and, more importantly, an absurd claim. Nor would it be correct to turn every software malfunction into a catastrophe waiting to happen.
Complex technology can create unpredictable combinations. That is a fact. But precisely because this is true, the validation process has to be even more rigorous.
If a technical regulation introduces a system capable of intervening in the amount of energy reaching the wheels, engineers have to ask what happens when the car is travelling at extremely low speed. What happens when the tyres have little grip? When the driver is dealing with standing water and poor visibility? When the car is following the Safety Car? When the engine revs fall? When several cars are forced to slow down at the same time?
These are hardly science-fiction scenarios in Formula 1. They are part of motor racing. The unusual combination of conditions at Sepang had already made the weekend a major technical challenge for Ferrari, as shown by the team’s technical preparations for the SF-26 at Sepang.
If scenarios involving low speed, poor grip and restricted energy deployment were not tested sufficiently before the rules were introduced, then the problem is not simply the bug. The problem is the method.
Charles Leclerc brings the argument back to the driver
The highest category of motorsport cannot become a laboratory in which the consequences of regulatory choices are progressively discovered during Grand Prix weekends. A certain degree of evolution is inevitable, but there is a substantial difference between correcting a performance parameter and discovering that a particular combination of circumstances can leave a driver without the throttle response he expects.
In that sense, Charles Leclerc did something much more important than simply criticise the new generation of Formula 1 cars. He brought the discussion back to its starting point: the driver has to control the car.
That is not a nostalgic demand. It is not an attack on technology. It is the bare minimum.
A Formula 1 car can be complex, sophisticated, electrified, algorithm-driven and filled with control systems. It can even be built around energy management that continuously changes the behaviour of the car.
But the moment a driver presses the accelerator and can no longer be certain what response the Power Unit will provide, something is no longer working as it should.
And if that something concerns safety, it should have been discovered in simulators, testing programmes and validation procedures. Not at the 16th race of the championship.
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