RaceFans has reported:

Carlos Sainz Jnr criticized the FIA after a software error left some drivers with less power in qualifying for the 2026 Singapore Grand Prix sprint race. Sainz was among six drivers eliminated in SQ1 and finished 22nd and last, despite recording the 15th-fastest time in first practice. He said the power reduction compounded problems with his brakes and tyres.

“We did the whole lap with half a second less power than any other lap of the weekend, so that’s never going to help,” Sainz said. “But with all the issues that we had on the brakes and tyres in that quali, we would have always struggled to get through.”

Sainz said he had only one lap available in qualifying. Brake issues in first practice, or FP1, led the team to change the brakes before sprint race qualifying, but he said problems continued. He reported several lock-ups and difficulty managing both the brakes and tyres.

“We only got one lap and we had some issues with the brakes in FP1,” he said. “We had to change them for [sprint race qualifying] and we were having some brakes issues still. I had a few lock-ups and was struggling a lot with that and with the tyres.”

He said the power issue affected half the field, with some cars completing the lap with less power than others. “But on top of that half of the cars did the lap with half a second quicker engine than the others. There was another software issue with the cars at this time around and we on the bad end of it.”

Overtake Mode is available only at certain points during a race, but is meant to be enabled by default in qualifying. It lets drivers recharge their batteries by 9 megajoules per lap, rather than 8.5 megajoules, providing more power. The FIA confirmed that an Overtake Mode error caused some drivers to lose power during qualifying.

Sainz connected the incident to an FIA software fault five days earlier, which delayed the start of the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia by almost an hour. Several drivers complained at the time that competitors who had stopped on track were allowed to regain their original starting positions.

“For whatever reason, the FIA, like in Malaysia, didn’t decide to do sporting equity, and were happy to do half of the cars in quali with a higher power than the other half of their cars,” Sainz said. “So I’m a bit confused why the sport keeps doing different things depending on who is out in Q1 or who is in lap one.”

The qualifying problem was the latest technical fault to affect a competitive Formula 1 session. The Singapore Grand Prix weekend also saw Max Verstappen beat George Russell to pole, though Verstappen faced an investigation over a yellow flag incident. Russell had been quickest in an old-spec Mercedes in a session where Andrea Kimi Antonelli and the two Red Bull drivers saved tyres.