Charles Leclerc voices concern after Sepang chaos: 'It was scary'

Charles Leclerc has stated that the on-track issues that occurred on the formation lap in Sepang were "scary" to endure.

Multiple cars came to a halt as they rounded the circuit at slow speed, with many others unable to accelerate due to a software bug with the power unit.

The FIA declared that a mix of factors caused this, including low engine speeds and wet weather management systems.

Leclerc revealed he was unsure what was happening behind the safety car, with Max Verstappen pulling a huge gap to the field after he got his own power back.

"At first I thought that the safety car had switched off the light, I couldn't see the safety car," Leclerc told media including RacingNews365.

"There was too much spray, so I thought the safety car had gone, and Max was taking the gap to warm up the tyres, which I was like, 'Okay, fine'.

"And then they told me on the radio, 'we think Max has a problem'. Then Max went, Lewis was slow, and I waited.

"At one point I was just like, 'okay, I'm probably just going to go'. And when I went on throttle, I had exactly the same problem.

"I realised everybody was in the same boat. We were stuck at like 20 km/h. It's a little bit scary to see that on a Formula 1 car."

Leclerc warns over major F1 shunt

Sunday's event marked the first time this year that the F1 cars were run in wet conditions in a competitive setting.

Leclerc has warned that the sport is risking a major shunt if power differences occur in low visibility.

"That's a bit our worry with these cars, not to that extent, of course, this was a problem, but whatever you have when you get out of the corner, sometimes you can have 100 horsepower more, 100 horsepower less," he said.

"You are not completely in control of the power you are given, and with this kind of visibility at the start of the race, you can have big shunts because of that.

"It's not the greatest cars to drive in these conditions."