Formula 1 teams are furious after a race control error accidentally left cars down on power during sprint qualifying at the Singapore Grand Prix, as Motorsport.com reports. The chaos unfolded in the first segment of the session at the Singapore Marina Bay circuit, which was red-flagged to clear up debris from Sergio Perez's front wing.
Once the cars headed back out, human error in race control meant that overtake mode—the power boost normally active throughout qualifying—was left inactive. Several drivers immediately reported feeling curiously down on power. Realising the mistake, a race control official turned the mode back on for 27 seconds before shutting it down again.
The result was an utterly compromised SQ1 session. Some drivers had set their best laps before the stoppage with full power, while those running afterward were stranded without the extra electric boost, missing the top 16 cutoff or unable to improve their times. Arvid Lindblad, Lance Stroll, and the two Williams cars were among the hardest hit by the blunder and were eliminated right there.
Teams tried to salvage the situation behind the scenes. Williams asked race control to let all 22 cars participate in SQ2 for a clean slate, but stewards denied the request, unsure if they had the regulatory capacity to do so. Another push to completely re-run SQ1 failed because teams lacked the necessary available tyre sets. FIA single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis met with the affected drivers and teams, with Williams and Racing Bulls expressing deep frustration while confirming they would not lodge a formal protest.
Aston Martin, however, kept its options open, waiting to see if the FIA would enact any rectifications to ensure a fair and equal starting grid for Saturday morning's sprint. Despite the lingering anger, no further changes to the sprint qualifying results are expected. It is a messy repeat of sorts, coming just a week after a power unit software glitch delayed the start of the Bahrain GP in Malaysia.
To make matters worse, a separate timing issue controlled by F1 management failed to register several lap times throughout SQ1, leaving drivers entirely in the dark about whether their laps were good enough to progress. The FIA later issued an apology acknowledging the human error in race control, confirming that overtake mode was mistakenly left disabled after the red flag before the brief, confusing 27-second activation window.
