Last-minute fix made to F1's Sepang starting grid
Race officials at Formula 1's Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia had to make a last-minute fix on Thursday after it emerged that pole position had been painted on the wrong side at Sepang.
Eagle-eyed observers from teams who had conducted track walks on Wednesday had noticed that the grid positioning was different to the past.
Rather than pole being on the right-hand side of the circuit, as it has been at previous rounds of the Malaysian Grand Prix, it was noted in the build-up to F1's return to the venue that it had been shifted to the left.
This placement was an error, which was quickly spotted during official FIA inspections on Wednesday.
It is understood this had happened because of an administrative mistake somewhere along the way in the paperwork preparations, where tracks are told on which side pole position should be laid down.
Quite simply, the Malaysia officials had been told to put the pole on the left and they had duly done so.
However, with the FIA quickly realising during its checks that they should have been told to paint pole on the right, a shuffling was needed to repaint the grid. This work was done on Thursday.
The work was an easy fix to implement, with Malaysia officials having originally solved the problem of having pole on the left by adding an extra grid slot at the front.
In reverting to the traditional pole spot on the right, work was done to paint over the white lines of the original pole – and then repaint the numbers of every grid slot after that.
So what was painted as the second spot on Wednesday, has now been amended to be pole position. All the numbers have been amended behind too.
The changing of the position of the grid slot also helped F1 avoid another headache in terms of the positioning of the official start line.
The new ‘left’ pole had been painted ahead of the original start line, which would have been a complication for the timing systems if things had been left unchanged.
In going back to the old pole that first problem was resolved – although the new pole was still positioned slightly within the one metre minimum distance that is laid down in FIA regulation.
The line therefore had to be repainted slightly further in front of the new pole slot on Thursday.
Despite the last-minute shuffling of the grid boxes, the Sepang circuit passed its circuit inspection on Thursday without any major dramas ahead of its first F1 race since 2017.
