Being the most technical of sports - not to mention the constant rule changes - F1 fans need as much information as they can get hold of in order to get the very most out the race and fully appreciate what is happening as the race unfolds.

One of the key features of the official Formula One website since it was launched has been its live timing facility which gives fans access to much of the information available to the teams. This year, more than ever before, what the increased number of pit stops due to the introduction of tyre more susceptible to degrading - fans need to know the race order and gaps in real time.

Sadly, this weekend, one of the most important weekends on the F1 calendar, the live timing failed monumentally, leaving fans, confused, angry and frustrated.

It was evident during the Friday practice sessions that there was a problem, the system clearly unstable. However, in the opening moments of Saturday's qualifying session the system appeared to fall apart. Whether launching the timing screen within the site or in a new screen many readers were faced with the frustrating image seen above or an equally frustrating black screen bearing the words "please wait".

Just minutes into the session we were receiving e-mails from fans wondering what was wrong, confused as to whether the problem was unique to their PC or laptop.

"How good of the Formula1.com live timing feed to s**t itself halfway through Q2," wrote one frustrated fan. "And this after it took an entire bunch of Java updates across 4 boxes in my house just to make the thing work like it did last year. Just another way of alienating the audience I suppose."

When information did appear it was clearly incorrect, the data not equating to what fans could see on their TV screens. "Atrocious. I was up to six minutes behind," wrote another fan.

"I made the mistake of hitting the refresh button and have now joined in in just getting the loading screen. Guess I only got it before because I'd just left it open from practice," added another.

Sadly, things were little better for Sunday's race, with screens either failing to load or showing data that was several laps behind what was really happening.

"Had zilch so far," wrote one fan just twenty minutes into the race, "why stay up????"

"It would be funny if it wasn't so frustrating," added another, "kinda what you might expect from a two-bit operation, not a multi-billion dollar industry."

"Today I can't get anything at all," complained another Pitpass reader. "I even opened up half-an-hour before the start of the race, got the screen but it was blank and stayed so. I have just rebooted and have the fun of the initialising graphic eternally."

"Yippeee! It's finally started working!!!" wrote another, "why should I get upset that it's after the race has finished!"

Glen Crompton was equally frustrated: "Don't know what your Bernie.com live feed was like yesterday but I had three different browsers running on two machines - all of which worked fine last year and only one of which finally loaded the java app and nearly updated regularly.