F1 warned of 'system stress' and 'fatigue' following recent technical glitches

Martin Brundle believes F1 is showing signs of "fatigue" after recent technical glitches over the last two grands prix weekends in Malaysia and Singapore.

For last Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix at the Sepang International Circuit, a software patch had to be issued to the teams due to a wet-weather power unit mapping bug causing cars to suffer unrecoverable power loss on the formation lap under the mandatory 250kW restriction.

The FIA distributed an emergency fix that bypassed the restrictive energy limits so cars could safely get going, and has since confirmed a permanent update to the standard ECU's wet-weather parameters will be rolled out for the United States Grand Prix in Austin.

On Friday in Singapore, further confusion arose. Timing screens failed to register multiple drivers' lap times at the end of SQ1, delaying the start of SQ2 by almost 20 minutes while race control verified the classification.

Race control also conceded to an operational "human error" following a crash involving Cadillac's Sergio Perez, briefly activating overtake mode for roughly 27 seconds before it was switched off again, handing an uneven energy boost to only part of the field.

Brundle, speaking on Sky Sports F1, feels the recent technical issues are a sign F1's 'system' is being stressed.

"They fixed it quite quickly," said Brundle, referring to what occurred in Malaysia. "One team needed longer than the others to get it signed off at HQ. That cost another 10 minutes. I won't name that team.

"But there was clearly a problem, in a zone we weren't expecting, on a particular sector of the lap. It was wrong. It shouldn't be, but it was.

"They found a solution, made a patch, the teams put it on their cars, and we all went racing.

"I tell you what I think I'm seeing is fatigue. We've got six races in seven weekends, nine in 11. We parachute into temporary facilities like this [Singapore], random bits of concrete and asphalt around the world.

"We had some more glitches in [sprint] qualifying yesterday, not just from the FIA, that were a bit curious with onboard and driver trackers and lap times, sector times, teleprint, and that sort of thing.

"I think we're just stressing the system a little bit, but it shouldn't happen in the world of Formula 1."

Brundle, though, was clear that his affection for the sport remained undimmed despite the recent run of problems.

"I love driving them [the cars]," he said. "If we had a normally aspirated engine and a gear lever linkage and a throttle cable, we wouldn't be here today with all of this amazing world of Formula 1, maybe hobby racing in Europe."