The FIA has apologised for a software glitch which affected a number of cars at the start of today's race.
The first sign that something was wrong was when pole-sitter Max Verstappen reported a lack of power during the formation lap.
A number of other drivers, including both Ferraris, suffered issues which either caused them to stop on track or drop down through the field.
They were all eventually able to make their way back to the pits for the restart almost an hour later, Race Control having abandoned the original start procedure.
The FIA subsequently issued an apology, as it confirmed that the glitch was down to the software issued to the teams.
"On the formation lap ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, an unprecedented combination of low engine speed, low-grip conditions, wet-weather energy management settings and the Sepang circuit's sector configuration led to an unintended loss of power for a number of cars," said the sport's governing body in a statement.
"As a result, the FIA Technical Department removed the energy limit constraint in the affected sectors through an updated software release distributed to all competitors during the race delay caused by heavy rain enabling teams to make the necessary changes to the power unit before the start of the race.
"This issue had not been detected by the FIA or the teams during testing or during the laps to the grid. The FIA, together with the teams and power unit manufacturers, will undertake a full review of the issue."
The issue follows the error by F1 at Monaco that led to the result of the Monaco Grand Prix being challenged numerous times, and represents another own goal in a season in which many see the sport as having lost its way with the drivers no longer in control of their cars, rather the cars in control of the drivers.
Once the field had made its way back to the pits, fans and viewers watched in disbelief as cars were pushed up and down the pitlane on order to get them in the correct order for the restart, while some, including Fernando Alonso questioned why those that stopped on track were allowed to continue.
"It's the first time I see it," said the Spaniard. "I had half of the races this year with DNF and we never stopped the race. I hope they can do it next time we stop."
The FIA's single-seater director, Nikolas Tombazi subsequently explained the issue in more detail.
"We didn't manage to test the software as extensively as we would have liked because there's been very little wet running this year," he said, according to Motorsport.com. "There was a bit of a combination of circumstances which caused this bug to kick in.
"Basically, on the formation lap, some cars went very slowly and almost came to a standstill," he continued. "There was a bit of a concertina effect between cars and some cars almost stopped completely. That bug prevented the power to be redeployed and for the cars to start again.
"It was mainly in some sectors where the full power was reduced," he explained. "I don't know exactly what speed that was, but some cars reaching this very low speed somehow entered into a loop, which meant they couldn't re-accelerate and then it looked as if they came to a stop.
"Not all cars reached the same low speeds on the formation lap," said Tombazis, when asked why only certain cars appeared to be affected. "There was a bit of a concertina effect. I think Max slowed down quite a lot, being at the front, and then some cars braked harder as they were surprised and so on. That caused some cars to experience the problem and some others to not experience it.
"Fortunately, our guys understood the issue very, very quickly. I think the update was done very competently. It was obviously a rush job. The priority was to get running as quickly as possible again, so I think the reaction time was quite fast. It wasn't a perfect job and, clearly, we didn't test the updates, but I think it was the way to handle such a case.
"In some of the sectors, some of these reductions of power were overridden," he revealed. "Clearly, we didn't have five days to do the updates. We only had a few minutes, but fortunately, I think we managed to do it without compromising any safety, any racing or fairness.
"The software was tested," he insisted. "It just wasn't tested in those specific conditions. What caught us out was the fact that cars went in that very, very low speed, which was not normally contemplated."
Asked why a scenario had not been anticipated, he repied: "Any bug is a product of a mistake. I mean, I don't know of any software that doesn't have bugs and updates. Your computer probably gets updated every three days and those are all bugs.
"Of course, anticipating these things is what one hopes to do, but sometimes some very combination of events isn't properly anticipated and causes the problem. I think if we had had a bit more testing, we probably would have managed to catch it in time and not to have such a situation.
"We would all like it to be simpler, but the fact is when you have as much electrical energy, it does make it more complicated," he admitted. "I think you appreciate that the race has now finished about one hour ago and we haven't done a full debrief of the situation to see how we can avoid such an issue.
"Every race, we have a long debrief afterwards where we identify criticalities. Obviously, that was a major criticality and we need to make sure we avoid it.
"Can I guarantee it will never happen again? This specific problem, yes. A problem, no. But we will do our best to avoid it, of course."
Luckily, we ended up getting a decent race. Had this not been the case, especially with so much unease already surrounding the regulations, heads might have needed to roll.
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