A Formula 1 car shutting down because it is travelling too slowly sounds almost impossible, but that is exactly what happened at Sepang because of a software bug. Now, during the 2026 United States Grand Prix weekend in Austin, the FIA has asked every car to recreate the Malaysian scenario in an attempt to prevent the problem from happening again.
At Sepang, several cars came to a halt on the wet track while running behind the safety car. With the new mappings limiting electrical deployment, some power units dropped too low in the rev range. Turbo pressure then fell away and could not be recovered, leaving the drivers with no response even when they pressed the accelerator.
Why some F1 cars were affected and others were not
Not every power unit suffered the same problem. The Mercedes units remained at around 9,000 rpm even while the cars were moving at little more than walking pace, allowing them to avoid the issue. Other cars were less fortunate.
Some recovered as soon as the drivers were able to accelerate again. Others were forced into one of the least desirable procedures imaginable on an F1 grid: shutting everything down and restarting the car, effectively performing the motorsport equivalent of rebooting a frozen computer.
That is why the FIA decided to recreate the same operating conditions in Austin. The cars were instructed to use the wet-weather mode despite running on a dry circuit and to reduce their speed below 40 km/h. The result was encouraging: the test produced no anomalies and the intervention appears to be working.
FIA orders 35 km/h Austin test to recreate the Sepang software bug
Waiting for the weather to deteriorate and for rain to arrive would have made little sense, particularly with no time to waste. After the opening practice session — a session in which Ferrari also evaluated the SF-26’s Austin configuration — the FIA asked the drivers to help reproduce the conditions that had triggered the original problem.
The procedure was highly unusual. Drivers were instructed to approach Turn 15, the slowest corner at the Circuit of The Americas, at just 35 km/h, maintain that speed for three seconds and avoid touching the accelerator. For a Formula 1 car capable of extraordinary speeds, crawling through a corner at the pace of an ordinary road car was an unusual sight.
However, the test was necessary even though the conditions were effectively reversed. Instead of reproducing a wet-weather problem in the rain, Formula 1 simulated the wet operating configuration on a dry track because that was the situation in which the Sepang malfunction had appeared.
Software patch passes its first Austin test
This time, no car shut down and no single-seater suffered the same loss of power. The software patch therefore appears to be holding under the conditions reproduced by the FIA.
It remains only an initial positive indication rather than a guarantee that the problem has been eliminated completely. Nevertheless, successfully recreating the low-speed scenario without another shutdown represents an encouraging first test of the changes introduced after Sepang.
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