FIA admits fairness was compromised in Singapore sprint qualifying

The FIA admits that fairness was compromised during sprint qualifying at the Singapore Grand Prix. Nikolas Tombazis, the federation’s single-seater director, called the incident “the worst thing” for the FIA after a sequence that affected the competitive order.

Sprint qualifying was red-flagged after Sergio Perez’s crash. At the end of SQ1, race control first failed to reactivate overtake mode. It then switched the system on for 27 seconds before deactivating it again. Drivers were puzzled by the lack of power, while those eliminated in that opening phase felt they had been unfairly disadvantaged.

Speaking to Sky Germany, Tombazis explained that “there’s a lot of things happening simultaneously in race control”. Reactivating the system is normally a manual process, he said, so officials can check that it is safe to do so. This time, a pop-up appeared on a team member’s computer and was not dealt with quickly enough. Under time pressure and the strain of other events, it was then forgotten, he said.

The drivers’ complaints prompted the FIA to investigate what had happened. Once the problem was identified, overtake mode was briefly switched back on. Tombazis acknowledged that this was not the right decision for fairness, before the system was deactivated once more.

“It was a bit of a mess, quite frankly,” he admitted, referring to the effect on the competitive order. The FIA is unhappy, he added, because some drivers were affected more than others. Tombazis said the issue interfered with the results of the sprint’s opening session and reiterated that safety and fairness are the federation’s priorities.

He also acknowledged that people can make mistakes in a complicated job. The FIA’s responsibility, he said, is to analyse those errors and make sure they do not happen again—a process now under way after the incident.