r/mildlyinfuriating • • 8d ago

Unskippable ad A software bug suddenly limited 10 F1 cars to 30 km/h during the formation lap

18.5k Upvotes

1.0k comments sorted by

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u/Fr0gFish 8d ago

Finally some sensible driving. Take your time, lads. There is no rush.

319

u/Paradoxbox00 8d ago

I wanna get there but I wanna get there alive!

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u/Fr0gFish 8d ago

We are all just trying to get from point A to point B

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u/howreudoin 8d ago edited 8d ago

Those racing cars are just getting from point A back to point A. So there really is no reason to rush.

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u/SanktusAngus 8d ago

Think bout it. Speeding only saves you a couple of seconds but could cost you your life!

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u/bikes_bucees 8d ago

“It’s not a race, fellas!”

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u/GromOfDoom 8d ago

I hope there is now a whole f1 class dedicated to this level of skill and driving

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u/Iamfabulous1735285 8d ago

That bug made them crawl

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u/Timely-Payment-7200 8d ago

My lawnmower could pass half the grid

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u/JTSpirit36 8d ago

Funny you say that because the Aston Martin was just that for a bit.

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u/TomCruisesZombie 8d ago

Totally guessing here, but maybe the F1 designers put that engine government in by design so that it happens if there are ever any bugs in the system (for safety).

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u/FakeMik090 8d ago

If it was a safety mechanism, then i would say its great.

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u/andreisitancurile 8d ago

From what i heard, the software limited the engines to like 60% power, they have removed something to keep the turbo spooled because supposedly audi wanted it gone because it would not matter in road car research. The ecu, detecting the turbo unspooled, and almost half power, had a stroke and decided to put the cars in crawl mode, some even stopping on track

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u/Stuf404 8d ago

Somewhere, a charity electric wheelchair race experience a software bug and get forced to go 200kmh

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u/Chedditor_ 8d ago

I wish bugs worked like that sometime, it'd be a lot easier to debug them

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u/HerbGrinder 8d ago

But it'd be a lot funner not to

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u/Chedditor_ 8d ago

marked as Won't Fix

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u/CanExplainThings 8d ago

Accidentally removed a handicap. 

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u/CottoneyedJones 8d ago

I'd love to see them all go like this for a full "race".

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u/The-Bunbins 8d ago

And the crowd goes mild.

522

u/VirtualNaut 8d ago

-ly infuriated!

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u/kaisadilla_ 8d ago

That track is awesome, and it's actually not on the calendar. The only reason we got it this year is because Bahrain needed a track outside their country to put their name to. So I think most people would be more than mildly infuriated if this unique chance to see Sepang was ruined.

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u/Connect_Cat_2045 8d ago

Indonesia wouldn't be the only thing burning.

Jokes aside, with how many complaints there were of a lack of water at the track (to drink) and how long the queues were, fans would be infuriated if the race got cancelled

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u/tubbyx7 8d ago

To be fair that crowd had been very vocal and kept themselves amused for an hour and a half of rain delay before this

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u/JL_MacConnor 8d ago

Best Bahrain GP crowd ever.

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u/SMUHypeMachine 8d ago

Nothing quite like the sound of a 6 cylinder turbo at 2k RPM 🤗

/s obviously

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u/FlyAirLari 8d ago

The new safer version of formula car racing.

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u/NarrMaster 8d ago

Scooty Puff Jr. vs Sr.

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u/ShadowKraftwerk 8d ago

Winner determined by slipstreaming for that extra 0.02 km/h speed advantage it gives, pit stop time, and who can find the absolute shortest way around the track.

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u/Aardvark_Man 8d ago

They're already so good at finding the absolute shortest way around the track.
There's often centimeters or less between their car and a wall. Qualifying can and does come down to hundredths of a second, because they're all so close to the ideal line etc.

4

u/ShadowKraftwerk 8d ago

To a large extent, but not 100%.

There is balancing of highest speed and shortest distance.

It isn't unusual to see cars taking a longer line (particularly noticeable on heavily banked corners) because of speed either at that time or setting up for the following section of track. Or maybe as a consequence of the preceding section of track.

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u/VeritableLeviathan 8d ago

Slipstreaming at these speeds won't get you past people, you might shave like a second of somewhere but that won't matter at the times these speeds will get you lol.

If slipstreaming even has a noticeable effect at these speeds (it likely won't lmao)

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u/ThatsNashTea 8d ago

At 30kph, the low pressure area created by the car in front is only a couple cms and collapses instantaneously. Besides, it's only helpful by reducing air pressure/friction, allowing the vehicle to be more efficient, in this case, the software is the limiting factor, not drag efficiency. Any increase in speed due to slipstream would be immediately negated by the software slowing the car down.

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u/Independent-Dust7459 8d ago

Technique for the win. 🏆

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u/Youutternincompoop 8d ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdxiNBwxYxU

a full lap of racing with lego cars that are only capable of that sort of speed.

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u/Dramatic-Ad3928 8d ago

That was the first thing this pace made me think of lmao

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u/reflion 8d ago

That’s just called the Monaco GP

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u/sociofobs 8d ago

Le Mans at 30 km/h would be a race of endurance indeed.

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u/PleaseDontEatMyVRAM 8d ago

"Remarkably, only 75% of the racers have let their vehicles, screamed angrily at the sky, and gone home."

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u/foreveralonewithus 8d ago

3-5 laps who ever comes in last wins maybe as a charity event.

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u/H4mb01 8d ago

Just did the math. If they go „full speed“ constantly it would take 10 1/2 hours.

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u/Badvevil 8d ago

This isn’t infuriating this is the funniest thing I’ve seen today

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u/killah10killah 8d ago

I’m thinking, if the cars are susceptible to software bugs, what if a bug kicked in midway down a straight with half of the grid going at 180mph.

Could be anything from visually amusing to absolutely catastrophic.

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u/my_basalt 8d ago

I'm not an F1 engineer, so take my opinion with *many* grains of salt, but I just joined my university's Formula SAE team this semester so I might have a tiny bit of insight.

From what I've learned about the large number of regulations, I think a bug causing uncontrollable acceleration is MUCH less likely than the speed just being capped. My guess about what happened is that something accidentally tripped a safety feature in the car, which is what limited it to 30kph. There are so many safeguards to stop a car's engine when a fault is tripped. Every car is required to have these safety features, several of which should prevent something like that happening.

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u/Unsey 7d ago

The current engine regulations in F1 enforce a complex split of power often cited as 50/50 between the ICE and electric motor/hybrid system. Traction control is banned in F1 and the FIA have TC-detection software built into the ECU to try and make sure that teams aren't abusing the power split to modulate how much electrical power is being delivered to make sure the rear tyres don't spin up.

As I understand it, during the wet formation laps, the cars were going too slowly to keep the turbocharger on the engine spooled up, this dramatically drops the torque output of the engine, and if the batteries were also flat there now isn't the torque that the TC-detection code is expecting for the throttle position, so it activates. Whether the bug was the parameters above triggering a false-positive, or was limiting the cars to 30kph, I don't know. But I do know the issue was ONLY a low-speed issue. The FIA magically rolled out a fix track-side that delayed the start of the race by another hour or so.

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u/LCDRformat 8d ago

If you paid for tickets it might be a little infuriating

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u/mcshrek201 8d ago

This is the formations lap, its a lap they do before the race starts, and theres never any overtaking allowed, so the formation lap, which is already a super slow lap, wouldve just been extra super slow.

The race was delayed, which is cause for being mildly infuriated, while they pushed out a patch that would ignore the faulty sensors, and then the race started and happened without further incident (of this nature)

So the full race still happened, there was just a slow formation lap

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u/YoElliott 8d ago

It was one of the best races of the season.

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u/bob_nugget_the_3rd 8d ago

Really hope someone shouted "put yer foot down"

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u/KumekZg 8d ago

"Damn Bobby, it looks alot faster on the TV."

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u/becken_bruch 8d ago

Hahaha good one!

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u/oyveymyforeskin 8d ago

You can't park there mate

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u/DissposableRedShirt6 8d ago

There is a saying. It’s more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow. Those drivers must be going nuts.

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u/Alternative-Hall7067 8d ago

That’s totally true though. It’s a matter of handling and perception of velocity. I used to have a Mitsubishi space star - an old one. It would go 160 km/h MAX. It felt like liftoff. Then I had an insignia sports tourer and would go 160 calmly; 190 in cruise control on the highway later at night at stretches with little traffic. Maxing at like 215 (out of 235 but I know my limits) before I got the same “fearful sensation”. It had everything to do with the stability and handling of the car.

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u/meepmeepmeep9999 8d ago

That’s why I like to loosen the lugs on one of my tires from time to time. Makes the commute a lot more thrilling

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u/that_dutch_dude 8d ago

the most interesting thing that happend in F1 in at least a year,.

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u/ModenaR 8d ago

Obviously a dutch wrote this

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u/that_dutch_dude 8d ago

i stopped watching years ago. if something interesting happens my coworkers will tell me about it regardless.

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u/ModenaR 8d ago

Somehow the year Verstappen stopped being a title contender your coworkers went silent. Interesting

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u/partaloski 8d ago

More of it comes from the part where the cars are stupid as fuck and make racing not at all interesting, but perhaps a driver that's the favorite of yours had some luck in their favor causing you to ignore all the red flags the new regulations have displayed?

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u/YesIBlockedYou 8d ago

As someone from a totally neutral F1 country, this has been a terrible year of F1. The superclipping and artificial overtaking might woo the casuals but the more technical fans and drivers clearly despise it.

Only good thing from this year will be a new WDC champion.

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u/bopaqod 8d ago

This is the first time I have ever stopped watching mid-season. Just a terrible year for races. It used to be my weekend priority for years and years, and now I’ve tossed it aside because of these current regs.

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u/Past_Paint_225 8d ago

Not a Dutch, Malaysian gp (or qatar gp in sepang whatever) was the most interesting race of this season by far

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u/Huge-Captain-5253 8d ago

Is no one concerned that in a sport where speed decides race results, and there are big commercial interests invested in doing well, there is clearly a way for an external third party to reduce the speed of cars remotely? This one is obvious because it's down to 30km/h, but if next season Ferrari needs to do well what would stop a well placed bribe from reducing their rivals top speed by 5%

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u/LordOFtheNoldor 8d ago

Exactly my first thought, how can you ever trust the results of a race again? How can you bet or anything related to it if there is a system dictating the speeds of every car

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u/jngjng88 8d ago

Gambling is way too normalised.

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u/LordOFtheNoldor 8d ago

It's unbelievable how common it is now and how heavily promoted it is

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u/Artrimil 8d ago

The mob never left, they just moved storefronts.

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u/Rasutoerikusa 8d ago edited 8d ago

Software has been running F1 cars for more than a decade now, and much of other motorsport series as well. It is not something that is remotely controllable or anything that the teams wouldn't notice if it was manipulated somehow. Understandably it may seem like it though, if you don't know how the cars function (and the fact that they are hybrid cars, which pretty much requires software to run it. Just like the hybrid cars you may or may not own yourself).

The amount of telemetry available to the teams would also instantly tell them if there was an issue causing the software to slow down the car.

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u/MrAdultLit 8d ago

The telemetry is the big one. I don't think casuals understand the amount of data coming out of an F1 car. If I remember correctly, they can look at individual cylinders combustion efficiency live, during a race. If something was interrupting that, it would also have to fake about 1000 telemetry data points.

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u/Penguin_Arse 8d ago

And even then they'll check the top speed and see it's slower than usual for some reason

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u/Fabriksny 8d ago

Don’t the drivers actively bitch about varied control that inconsistently applied?

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u/Halfisleft 8d ago

the system is a safety system, limitng speed in pit lanes and such, everyone has the same system and it had a bug, you are basically asking "how can we bet when someone might have tampered with someones car" which applies to literally every sport ever of all time

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u/thegreedyturtle 8d ago

Uhhh... The entire car disctates the speed of the car. There's lots of fun ways to sabotage a car mechanically. 

There's also ways to cheat by not designing your car to the same standards in a way that gives your driver an advantage.

It's managed the same as drug testing in other sports: careful inspections. I don't know how software inspections are managed, but you can validate them too.

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u/Ferrax47 8d ago

The drivers know their cars so we'll that they would immediately notice it and complain, causing an investigation and lawsuits against the responsible party?

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u/Vangour 8d ago

Didn't work for poor George unfortunately lol

He basically had a crippled car for half this season and was continuously told by his team "the car's fine, he's just slow" despite having a 60kph deficit to his teammate on the straights at one track lol.

And this happened I think 4 races in a row before they even admitted there was a problem.

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u/RuncibleSpoon18 8d ago

It's a different story when the discrepancy comes from an internal issue. The team will always try to safe face. If it was an outside influence Toto would be printing emails and throwing headsets until an investigation happened.

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u/the-awesomer 8d ago

people still love professional entertainment wrestling

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u/Suspicious-Spell-130 8d ago

And bet on it.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago edited 3d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/waldleben 8d ago

Except thats not at all what happened here. Its not "remote control", its just a bug in the software governing the engine. Software that is run entirely locally

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u/I_think_Im_hollow 8d ago

You underestimate how much the pilots know their cars. They notice every little thing and work directly with the engineers to improve them further. If there was something "usual", whether on acceleration, the brakes or the control of the car, they'll report that immediately.

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u/AlexVonBronx 8d ago

lol they have so much telemetry you wouldn't believe, there is no way anything like what you're describing could ever happen without the team noticing

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u/FiercelyApatheticLad 8d ago

3rd party? What 3rd party? The software is developed by the FIA and the teams themselves. No one else is involved.

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u/No_Photographs609 8d ago

If an engineer sabotaged his own team's software his career would be over when he's eventually caught. If Ferarri is going to cheat they're better off cheating by giving their cars an advantage like they have in the past.

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u/Junethemuse 8d ago edited 8d ago

The software is written by the teams and run locally. Some of the code is copy/pasted but every team’s engineers see and know what every line does. This software isn’t controlled externally so really doesn’t elicit this concern

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u/Tom_Is_Ready 8d ago

we have access to telemetry, entire youtube channels specialize in analyzing all the data output of each car and comparing it across years and teams.

drivers would instantly notice their car being wrong.

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u/therealhairykrishna 8d ago

You know that entire truck full of engineers sat in front of screens of data that every team has? They're not there on a jolly you know.

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u/SaltyArchea 8d ago

A thread full of people that boldly claim things about stuff they do not know anything about. These cars have so much telemetry coming out of them, teams know how every part behaves. Anything even slightly off they would instantly see and know. Not even to mention that the drivers are unbelievably one with the car. There are instances of drivers knowing that the chassis of the car has cracks in it, that the team could not detect without taking everything apart and x-raying it.

5% is the difference between the fastest car and one that is a complete joke. Hell, half a percent is a large enough difference.

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u/Rasutoerikusa 8d ago

No. It is nothing that can be remotely controlled, and if it was, teams would notice it in a millisecond from their own data.

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u/Superdaneru 8d ago

Right? I'm not that well versed with current F1 tech, but I thought the commentators said the software update was given to all teams via some portable storage like a hard disk.

I really doubt any of this is via an over the air update.

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u/HG1998 8d ago

I mean, there's also talks of jamming the signals of the electronic shifting most road bikes now use but so far, this hasn't caused anyone to go back to mechanical ones.

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u/stink3rb3lle 8d ago

Is it just 10 cars in the race? How did it hit all of them at once?

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u/Findict_52 8d ago

It didn't. It only affected some cars. Some cars are going slowly because they're not allowed to overtake (which ironically risks reproducing the bug)

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u/neko_mud0 8d ago

it didnt risk, it did

first vestapen had problem but people didnt notice, only then hamilton and so on

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u/kaerfkeerg 8d ago

If one instance of the software is running for all the cars and something went wrong, it's logical that all the cars assigned in said software would be affected

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u/stink3rb3lle 8d ago

I work in the same software as my colleagues, but except for total crash outs, glitches usually hit us slightly differently over the same time periods.

I don't know what the software is meant to be doing for these cars, but it looks like it programs the car to do X at Y part of the track, since it slowed so many down at the same part of the track.

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u/Fearless_Swim4080 8d ago

The sector was designated as wet and came at a point in the track where turbo boost was low, those were basically the two conditions that caused the bug to show up. This happened in different parts of the track too, throughout the lap, just this was where it hit pretty much everyone.

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u/HazuniaC 8d ago

In formation lap, if the car ahead slows down due to a bug, you have to slow down as well since you're not allowed to pass during a formation lap.

So technically it only needs to hit 1 car for everyone to slow down.

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u/RED-WEAPON 8d ago

Could malicious actors hack / use this to slightly slow competitors during a race?

Doesn't this inherently mean races are vulnerable to foul-play / rigging?

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u/Connect_Cat_2045 8d ago

the issue was because of software from the FIA (the body that governs formula 1) and it was something that automatically triggered so it can't be abused maliciously. This has also happened before in practice sessions it's just the first time its happened in the middle of a race to multiple competitors.

The FIA says that this happened not only because of the software in question, but also due to the slow speeds the cars were travelling at and the low grip conditions and it shouldn't happen again. It also doesn't help that the track in the video is a fresh track that wasn't really intended to host a race and was only hosting due to the conflict in the middle east.

The issue was that when the cars were traveling slowly (due to the low grip conditions) behind the safety car, the boost pressure of the turbo fell and that caused the mgu-k to shut down and put the cars in a safe mode where basically the throttle pedal did nothing.

All power unit manufacturers other than Honda were affected and the teams that used this software as an exploit a couple months ago (Mercedes, red bull) managed to get away and fix this relatively quickly but some teams had to pull over and basically restart their cars.

It just shows how impractical and how little thought went into the 2026 engine regulations

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u/No_Survey_9498 8d ago

Are you george russell by any chance?

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u/Gasperhack10 8d ago

No. This was a self contained logic error that did not account for an edge case. And f1 probably have blackboxes which would have logged any wired behaviour

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u/Mhykael 8d ago edited 8d ago

Ok, for people who don't know F1 I'll explain what happened based on my understanding of the videos I saw explaining this. This was the most recent F1 Grand Prix race in Malaysia. Because it was in Malaysia it was raining like crazy. 45 min rain delay, FIA the governing body of F1 put all the cars into "Rain Mode" essentially throttling all the Engines to the same RPM limit for safety reasons. However, that's still not why "this" happened they would still be able to race in the 100's just not in the 200's. Lol, imagine the safety in the rain going from 250 to 150 and being like. Nah, hitting the wall at 150's fine mate, go race.

Anyways, so "Rain Mode" has been turned on. But last year they were allowed to have Turbo Spoolers to keep the RPM's up during cautions so they didn't have to spool them again. However, Audi joined this year with an E-Car engine that didn't have a Turbo and their stipulation to joining was the other cars couldn't have one either because they were "researching" the effectiveness of E-Cars. So the FIA said ok and made them take the Turbo kits out. We'll these cars are "finely tuned" and expect a certain amount of thrust and RPMs or they assume theirs something wrong with the engine and go into a Safety shutdown mode where they're operational but just enough to drive the vehicle off the track. And THAT is what was being triggered by the cars as they went through the hairpin and slowed down to much. So much so that some of the cars ECU's were freaking out and shutting the cars off. So there was another 45 minutes delay as FIA had some coders update the ECU module in real-time and then car crews uploaded the new configuration to the cars so they could get past the issue and actually race. THEN once they started racing it was actually an ok race.

Edit: Now that I've throughly pissed off the actual F1 fans and bots who weren't commenting earlier they can explain the minutiae of how I was wrong they can waste time correcting me. Updated info in the comments.

Edit 2: Thank you for the awards kind strangers!

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u/PM-ME-DAT-CAKE 8d ago

Are you suggesting the current reg cars aren't turbocharged? Every car on the grid is a 1.6l turbo hybrid. The MGU-H was removed in favor of MGU-K for energy recovery for this season. Not the turbochargers.

The FIA software was written to prevent the teams using power reduction as a form of traction control. This was the first real test of this system in the rain, running a different power map across the grid. When the turbochargers (which are decidedly still on the cars) spooled down, and the batteries drained, the ICE motor was unable to meet the torque requirements necessary to stay inside the FIA spec. This triggered the software to neuter the cars.

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u/20Factorial 8d ago

With this being the first wet race with the ‘26 cars, it’s not surprising something like this happened. Perfect storm of conditions that the rules didn’t anticipate.

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u/rage2amg 8d ago

The batteries didn’t drain. There’s multiple limits of electrical energy allowed, and the slow speeds burnt thru that limit. Software didn’t allow any more electric output which then triggered the traction control code to neuter the cars like you described. Also explains why a reboot fixed the issue, just reset all limits.

There was also no code changes in the update they sent out. They simply removed the electric output limits in the configuration. These limits are changed and uploaded every session, as qualifying and race have different limits. Different tracks also have different limits.

I do wonder if the removal of the limits allowed some teams to actually use more energy than allowed. Aston Martin Honda came alive this race and actually didn’t lose speed in the straights at all. Totally different car performance.

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u/Pure-Enthusiasm-1559 8d ago

he explained well enough, you are just repeating what he said. If the battery gets low to a certain point to trigger a "system alert" that is technically drainage. it was low enough not to meet energy demands.

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u/Wild-Man-63 8d ago

Don't forget it was the "Bahrain" grand prix in Malaysia

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u/coyote_den 8d ago

The ECUs can all be updated wirelessly? That also means they can be controlled wirelessly.

That could be hilarious. Biggest RC car ever.

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u/McFestus 8d ago

They cannot be updated wirelessly, the comment is mistaken.

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u/FMJoey325 8d ago

The amount of delusional misinformation from people who act like they know everything is astounding but I don’t know why I’m surprised. It’s Reddit.

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u/Mhykael 8d ago edited 8d ago

Edit: It was not wireless that was my bad. They made each team upload the file to the cars ECU using a wired device. That was my bad, I had heard wirelessly.

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u/meistr 8d ago

They have to connect the umbilical coord to the cars to do the update. The ECU software is signed and checked for conformity after each race. Teams are free to change alot of parameters but some are locked down by FIA. All teams use ECU made by McLaren in cooperation with FIA.

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u/Mindless_Issue9648 8d ago

what is the point of this software in the cars?

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u/Fearless_Swim4080 8d ago

They’re hybrids, the software decides how to split power delivery between ICE and Electric motor when you only have one throttle input.

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u/ki0dz 8d ago

To enforce regulations

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u/iamabigtree 8d ago

All cars have software to control engine management.

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u/Cant_draw_boobs 8d ago

From Danger Zone to Elevator Music real quick.

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u/KnowsSomeStuffs 8d ago

For those of you looking for an explanation, some dude on IG gave a great summary on it (cant remember his name but he wears pit vipers).

From what I remember, pretty much, these engines have a turbo that needs to be spooled. With this year's specs, they took the MGU-K out of the cars (because Audi), which has the purpose of keeping the turbo spooled when the car isn't moving fast. Since there was no MGU-K in these cars, they were moving slowly, and the turbo wasn't spooling; the computer software in the cars was triggering some sort of crawl mode, thinking the car was broken.

If someone wants to correct me, by all means; that's just my memory of the video off the top of my head.

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u/Apprehensive-Web1069 8d ago

MGU-H was removed , MGU-K is still present

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u/PM_Me_Modal_Jazz 8d ago

Why are different team's cars running on the same software?

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u/Andantee23 8d ago

They all have FIA software in their systems to prevent the power units from providing traction control-like behavior in wet conditions. This was the first time these power units ran in these conditions hence no data on how they were going to perform. The wet conditions, slow speed and low revs caused this glitch to kick in and we got to see Slomula One instead of our usual racing.

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u/VinsonDynamics 8d ago

Trash 2026 FIA regulations

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u/RainbowStar290 8d ago

School zone

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u/RW_McRae 8d ago

They all hit a hidden slowdown powerup (power-down?) on the track

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u/Aishll 8d ago

My 2013 Honda City can Finally gap an F1 Car 🥹

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u/Important-Fudge4462 8d ago

Fuckers do this shit at gocart city in the final lap lol.

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u/BreweryStoner 8d ago

As someone who knows basically nothing about F1, it’s crazy to me that someone/something can control the cars like that.

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u/j_d_q 8d ago

It's a huge safety positive. Imagine you're cruising 180mph and you get slowed. Oh this guy is sideways on the turn. I would've driven straight through him.

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u/bbceronimo 8d ago

Better safe than sorry 🤷‍♂️

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u/Accomplished_Cod7334 8d ago

So sick of this. Just put a screaming engine in there and let em at it

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u/cannibalistiic 8d ago

Does this not call into question the integrity of the entire sport?

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u/SilentSniper1252 8d ago

My brain when I think bad about Elon Musk after having the Neuralink installed

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u/Herr--Doktor 8d ago

"Critical Thinking has been disabled for the next 72 hours."

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u/RRRKnigh 8d ago

It’s like their in slow motion it’s hilarious

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u/bigjdaddy69 8d ago

Looks like when they shut you down on last lap go carting

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u/Sorry_Geologist1632 8d ago

Just trying to save gas with today's crazy prices.

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u/LordOFtheNoldor 8d ago

Software but that affects them all? So the cars can be manipulated remotely? That seems insane

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u/AussieAddict 8d ago

Well kind of, they can be manipulated remotely but I don't believe that's what happened in this instance. It was more that the software installed for the race affected multiple cars.

For the wet weather race there is software that reduces the engines battery power from 350kW to 250kW. This software is made by the FIA (governing body) to make sure it is fair for all teams.

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u/ComradeStijn 8d ago

It's homologated software on the car, not remote

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u/Findict_52 8d ago

So the cars can be manipulated remotely?

... Where did this conclusion come from? They just run the same FIA provided software for the part that messed up.

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u/cateyesarg 8d ago

No, it wasn't remotely, control software runs on each car. They had to update via a wired device some parameters in order to be able to race

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u/Tough_Block9334 8d ago

Atleast it's affecting all of them and not just one, so technically they can finish the race!

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u/ki0dz 8d ago

Actually, I read that Honda and Mercedes were unaffected. There was a misunderstanding about whether overtaking was permitted, so everyone slowed.

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u/zebrasanddogs 8d ago

I'll bet all the drivers were swearing!

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u/unicorngundamm 8d ago

They forgot to add "make no mistakes"

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u/spideyghetti 8d ago

So what happens if, during the race, only one of these cars in the lead had this issue and all of a sudden it drops from 300km/h to 30km/h and the car behind slams into its arse.

Besides that, it's fuckin hilarious.

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u/Hot-Government823 8d ago

Someone accidentally clicked yes to Windows Update

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u/Warm-Reporter8965 8d ago

I would 100% watch this. That would be the most nail-biting race I've ever watched.

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u/SpiritualHippo2719 8d ago

Snail-biting.

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u/jngjng88 8d ago

School zone

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u/FewAcanthocephala828 8d ago

What if it was just the lead car that had it happen, but everyone else just stayed in formation?

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u/CatL1f3 8d ago

This is pretty much what happened, but then the cars behind slowing down and dropping revs so much caused the same problem in some of them, too

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u/771810389044 8d ago

Looks like the people on the freeway when I’m trying to get to work

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u/Fogtwin 8d ago

Damn, 30 km/h looks way faster in a school zone.

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u/neverseen_neverhear 8d ago

Why is an outside software program controlling a race car?

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u/dailysmokes 8d ago

The entire car is a computer

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u/ki0dz 8d ago

To enforce regulations about power/battery usage and such

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u/Rasutoerikusa 8d ago

For the same reason computer is controlling every other hybrid system vehicle as well. Something needs to be in control of the deployment of both parts of the engine.

But in F1 specifically it is because the cars have a set amount of energy they are allowed to deploy and recharge per lap.

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u/esushi 8d ago

sounds like it could potentially be wonderful for safety

3

u/ILikeFlyingMachines 8d ago

It's not. The software is on the car

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u/JWalk4u 8d ago

Think of it like a road car going into limp mode. Happens without external control and only happened in this case due to a bug in the software.

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u/Fearless_Swim4080 8d ago

It’s not exactly “outside” it’s homologated software in essentially the ECU.

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u/JoepKip 8d ago

We are lucky this happened during the formation lap. Imagine how dangerous it would be if this happened mid race. The new regulations and reliance on AI/computer models have gotten demonstrably out of hand.

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u/Nmnmn11 7d ago

This was not a bug, the software worked exactly as intended. They just didn't expect this scenario to occur in regular driving conditions (it was basically designed to stop teams creating traction control)

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u/bigdogsy 8d ago

As someone who know nothing about F1. Couldn't they decide who wins a race or atleast has a good or bad one, by tampering with a cars performance like this?

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u/Junroll 8d ago

These cars can only have software changed in the pit lane BY the team. The bug you see here was in the standard code created by the FIA and distributed to all teams, hence it affected so many cars. Otherwise, cars can only send data one way while on track (back to the pitwall) and cannot receive any software update or anything. Even if you somehow managed to tweak something minor, the thousands of sensors on the car sending data back (the car sends close to a million data points a second) to the pitwall would alert them of something not being right, as they would know how their car should behave.

So tampering with the race like THIS is highly improbable if not impossible. I leave it to your own discretion on believing the other theories about tampering with other drivers' car, etc.

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u/Femgarr 8d ago

Technically yes but no, the teams make their own programs with help from the engine maker. And theres rules about purposefully giving a customer a bad program, and anything this drastic would be spotted and penalized. But that doesnt mean something could happen to make a driver slower, that has happened multiple times this year, but its just bc these engines suck and make up their own mind based on things a driver can't realistically control

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u/RawrRRitchie 8d ago

All F1 cars have the same software? I didn't realize they were sharing technology now.

I thought each car was unique to the team that works on them

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u/Holymyco 8d ago

They all use FIA provided software to control energy limits. In this case cars were limited to 250kW instead of the standard 350kW due to the wet weather. The software also limited the use of energy at certain parts around the track. That is why some cars seemed to die all at the same point on the track.

The bug seemed to only affect the Red Bull, Ferrari, and Audi engines. The other cars slowed down because they aren't allowed to pass on a formation lap and didn't want to get a penalty.

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u/That-Assist-7591 8d ago

I believe that people who never watched an F1 will be very confused at the "energy limits" XD

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u/32steph23 8d ago

Shoot…people who watch F1 still get confused about energy limits 🤣

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u/Vargrr 8d ago

F1 teams don't all use identical software, but the FIA mandates a standard ECU and certain common software systems to prevent teams from hiding illegal driver aids or other electronic tricks.

Apparently a lot of teams used to cheat by putting illegal driver aids in the software...

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u/minus15t2 8d ago

Just about everything that goes into the car is governed by a set of rules.

Team engineers can make tweaks within the rule guidelines, but they don't just have free reign to do anything they please.

A lot of parts are pretty much standardised across every team.

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u/Nissalai 8d ago

Formula Epatraktor.

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u/PatrioticPariah 8d ago

Mildlyamusing.

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u/Shinjifo 8d ago

Now's my chance to be a F1 driver

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u/ki0dz 8d ago

That was so much fun to watch that I rewinded it to see it again. It had rained like crazy earlier. Before the race they sent out the "medical" (safety) car to check the track and it skidded on the water.

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u/yaaro_obba_ ORANGE 8d ago

They were just testing in prod

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u/Sum-Duud 8d ago

😂🤣😂 like being on the go cart track and getting the little kids’ cars

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u/AcanthaceaeMother900 8d ago

This is most of what you could see them, really. With regular speed they just fly by. But this reminds a parade tbh

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u/AssociationEarly 8d ago

These guys were hit by temp chains and chilled ground combo all at once.

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u/TheUnoriginal13 8d ago

They all got hit by lightning mario kart style

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u/WayTooCool4U 8d ago

They forgot to renew their subscription

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u/bobdobdod 8d ago

Finally! Some good slowmo racing!

/s

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u/Indy_2704 8d ago

(Alt +) F4

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u/Important-Today4119 7d ago

F1 is a joke right now😂😂😂😂😂