F1 needs to have hard look at itself - Sainz

Formula 1 "needs to have a hard look at" itself in the wake of unprecedented software glitches that affected Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, Williams driver Carlos Sainz says.

A bug in the software for a wet-weather engine map led to a number of cars struggling to move on formation laps before the start of the race.

The start had to be abandoned, a new software code issued, and the race eventually got under way an hour and a half later than scheduled.

Sainz, who is a director of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association, said: "It is clear the regulations are extremely complicated for the drivers, for the teams, for the power units and for the manufacturers. Who decided five years ago that this was the direction to go?

"We are doing the best with what we are given as a sport and as regulations. The FIA and F1 are doing the best they can.

"But clearly what was decided four or five years ago was wrong. We need to learn as a sport not to make those mistakes again."

Governing body the FIA has launched a "full review" of the situation.

It arose because there had been very little wet-weather running this year, and the specific circumstances that triggered the bug had not previously arisen.

Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies said on Monday: "It's a good reminder for all of us that we should probably make sure that complexity doesn't get out of hand and that we keep things as under control as possible.

"And I'm sure we'll have discussions with the teams, with the FIA and with F1 to see how we can protect ourselves from those situations moving forward and make sure we can keep the complexity of the cars and the systems under control."

Sainz's remarks are a reference to the wider debate about this year's new engine regulations, which have a near 50-50 split between internal combustion and electrical power.

The engines are fundamentally energy starved, which has led to drivers feeling the cars behave in a counter-intuitive way, and have reduced the impact of driver skill.

The engines have about 1,000bhp on full power, but only 540bhp when the batteries run out.

Because of the way the regulations have been arranged, the batteries are fully deploying and recharging several times a lap. And a series of highly complex restrictions have been introduced relating to the operations of the engine to try to alleviate some of the issues that have arisen.

One of those is what triggered the problem in Malaysia - the total electrical power is reduced from 350kW (470bhp) to 250kW (335bhp) in the wet.

One of the idiosyncrasies of the rules is that the cars slow down at the end of straights to recharge batteries, and many challenging fast corners have been neutered because they are being used as what two-time champion Fernando Alonso has described as "charging stations for the car".

The 50-50 split was decided upon five or six years ago, and teams have been warning the FIA that these issues would arise since at least 2023.

But at no point was the 50-50 split questioned until just before the start of this year, when it became apparent how significant the impact of the engines would be.

Since the cars began to run this year, a series of rule changes have been introduced to address the issues.

This year, the total amount of recovery allowed is altered depending on how energy starved a circuit is.

The energy split will become 60-40 in favour of internal combustion in two steps by 2028.

And teams and F1 bosses are already working on finalising a new engine formula that will introduce power units that are never energy starved.

FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem initially pushed for naturally aspirated V8s with no hybrid at all.

But the current likeliest solution is a V8 turbo with somewhere in the region of 15-25% electrical power, which will mostly be used as a simple push-to-pass system.