In a statement from the FIA following Sprint Qualifying at the 2026 F1 Singapore GP, they confirmed that human error was involved regarding Overtake Mode.
The opening session of SQ was a mess. Timing glitches happened after it went green again. Sergio Pérez had crashed, causing a red flag and a solid delay to proceedings.
In a separate incident, however, the FIA released a statement confirming that Overtake Mode was not active after the restart. It was then enabled for 27 seconds, before it was shut down again.
FIA statement on human error regarding Overtake Mode in SQ1 at 2026 F1 Singapore GP
“During the first period of Sprint Qualifying there was a human error in Race Control unrelated to the timing issue also encountered in SQ1.
“This 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.”
Carlos Sainz a huge victim
Having ended up in P22, Williams driver Carlos Sainz was the unfortunate person to be shafted by this big mistake. His best Sector 1 was 0.3s quicker than Franco Colapinto (P16 and the last guy through) and teammate Alex Albon. However, he lost bundles of time in the middle part of the lap because he did not have the same power.
Speaking to F1 TV post-qualifying, the Spanish star questioned why the session was not restarted, especially after the events of Malaysia five days earlier when the grid order was not changed despite multiple cars stopping on the first formation lap.
“There was another software issue with the cars this time around and we were on the bad end of it.
“For whatever reason, the FIA, like in Malaysia, didn’t decide to do sport equity. We’re happy to do half of the cars in quali with a higher power than the other half of the cars.
“I’m a bit confused why the sport keeps doing different things depending on who is out in Q1 or who is out in Lap 1.”
James Vowles also gave his thoughts in Williams’s press release.
“After the red flag in the first session of Sprint qualifying there was an issue with the way overtake mode was activated which definitely had an impact on our lap times. We are confident this will be fully investigated by the FIA.”
