The FIA's single-seat director sheds further light on the "human error" that compromised some drivers in SQ1.
In the wake of the red flag resulting from Sergio Perez leaving debris on the track after running over his front wing in SQ1, there was an issue with the timing which subsequently caused the start of SQ2 to be delayed.
"The start of SQ2 will be delayed due to an issue with timing systems," said the FIA in a statement, "some lap times had not been registered," it admitted.
"That is now resolved and the current timings are considered correct. We are investigating whether we can proceed with the rest of the session."
Just moments after the statement was issued however, before SQ2 had been given the green light, the "overtake enabled" message appeared on screens.
The FIA consequently issued a further statement.
"During the first period of Sprint Qualifying there was a human error in Race Control unrelated to the timing issue also encountered in SQ1," it read. "The issue in question meant Overtake Mode was not available after the red flag period during SQ1.
"When it became apparent that Overtake Mode was not active after the restart, it was then activated for a period of 27 seconds before being deactivated again.
"The FIA acknowledges that this unfortunate human error had an impact on the performance of certain cars based on the timing of their run and their position around the lap.
"The second and third periods of Sprint Qualifying were not affected."
Those "certain cars" that effectively lost power included Carlos Sainz who lambasted officials for the situation.
"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," said the Spaniard, who was classed 22nd. "But with all the issues that we had on the brakes and tyres in that quali, we would have always struggled to get through," he admitted.
"But on top of that half of the cars did the lap with half a second quicker engine than the others," he continued. "There was another software issue with the cars at this time around and we on the bad end of it.
"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. 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."
Speaking to Sky Germany, the FIA's single-seater director, Nikolas Tombazis has shed further light on the "error".
"Normally it is a manual process to re-enable it," he explained, "because clearly when it gets re-enabled we want to make sure from a safety point of view it's okay to do so.
"Unfortunately, there was a pop-up window that came on somebody's computer that was not acted on quickly enough or when it should have," he admitted. "And then under the time pressure and the general other pressure, this was forgotten, unfortunately.
"We then went into quite an intense analysis about, was there some other issue, because we could hear, of course, the drivers complaining and saying what's happening. We realised where the problem was.
"At that time there was an erroneous decision to briefly turn it on again, but that was sort of not exactly the correct decision in order for fairness. And then it was turned off again.
"We're not happy about it, because it affected some drivers more and some drivers less," he admitted. "So as a result, just in the first session of the Sprint, we felt this problem interfered with the results, which for us as FIA is probably, in some ways, the worst thing, because our top priorities are always safety and fairness.
"Of course, to have a situation where a result is not fair or incorrect is for us not good. Of course, it is a complicated job, and people do make mistakes, and we need to be conscious of that. But we also need, when we do make mistakes, to analyse them and to make sure they don't happen again, which is what we're doing."
Other than, in the aftermath of Sepang, this is further proof that drivers do not have total control of their cars at all times, and that the FIA can use its 'boxes of tricks' indiscriminately, Tombazis comments confirm another aspect of the sport that fans have been complaining about this season, namely that radio messages between the drivers and their teams are being filtered.
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