Sergio Perez airs stern criticism after 'rental go-kart' chaos: 'Unacceptable'

Sergio Perez has hit out at the "totally unacceptable" issues that occurred on the formation lap at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia.

Multiple cars came to a halt while many others were without significant power, which came due to a software bug in the power units.

The issue caused another long delay to the start of the race, which had already been postponed due to adverse weather conditions.

Amid a series of complaints this year from the drivers regarding the new power units, Sunday's display gave them more ammunition.

While some drivers were more reserved, as they did not want to berate the sport further, Perez did not hold back.

"It felt like you were in a rental [go-]kart and you ran out of time," Perez told media including RacingNews365.

"It's obviously not great what happened. I'm sure we will learn from it as a sport, but what happened is totally unacceptable for the sport."

Lining up towards the back of the field, Perez made an early decision to ditch the slick tyres and swap over to the intermediates.

It allowed him to progress up the order, but he slipped back behind once the field bunched up under a safety car.

"I thought it was going to be dry, because when I did the laps to get to the grid, the formation laps, the first one, it was raining," he said.

"But I felt like it was too early for the inter. So when it dried up, I thought it was going to dry up a lot quicker than it did.

"But on the first lap, I realised that it was really difficult to keep the car on track. So I bailed out of it. It was the right decision.

"We put like 30 seconds into the cars behind. It was looking great, but unfortunately, the safety car came and bunched the field together, and we finished where we had to."