Formula 1 teams and drivers knew before the start of the season that race starts were going to be particularly challenging this year.
The requirement to spool up the turbo for around 10 seconds to ensure that it was in the perfect spot for the launch, while not overcharging the battery, proved to be quite a headache for a lot of drivers in testing.
It was the difficulties in getting this right consistently that triggered the pre-season safety debate that resulted in the FIA altering the start procedure itself.
As got trialled in Bahrain testing, and then implemented from the season-opening Australian Grand Prix onwards, an extra pre-start allowance of five seconds has been added to the start sequence to give all drivers enough time to get ready for lights out.
But the huge fluctuation between the good and bad starts at the season opener in Australia was not entirely down to this problem of getting the turbo sorted out.
Instead, it has emerged that some of it was linked to a rule that is aimed at restricting general power usage for the cars.
As part of F1’s technical regulations, each driver is given a maximum recharge allowance over each lap – which varies from track-to-track based on the circuit characteristics.
In Australia, this was set at 8MJ for the race – and is counted every time a driver crosses the timing line.
But, with it counting the same for the formation lap as a race lap, drivers quickly discovered that the typical things they do before the start clash with the harvesting and deployment limit.
On a formation lap, drivers want to accelerate a lot to warm their tyres, and also come to a stop quite heavily to get temperature into their brakes.
But in doing this typical behaviour, they quickly found that this was triggering energy deployment and energy harvesting – and all too quickly this put them at the 8MJ ceiling.
For drivers like pole position man George Russell, the situation was even worse because, in starting right next to the start line, this “quirky” rule meant he had deployed a lot of energy in his initial burnout.
Those further back, starting several metres behind the timing line, did their burnouts and got a reset as they crossed it.
This energy variation put them in different situations when it came to recharge levels.
Hitting the recharge limit on the formation lap may not have been such a problem by itself, were it not for another consequence of the rules relating to when the battery gets deployed.
There are certain stipulations in the regulations that demand, above a certain throttle request, that the battery must get used for power delivery.
This meant that drivers were suddenly finding their batteries getting drained - but knowing full well that having hit the recharge limit they could not put any energy back in them.
So as the lap finished, they either arrived on the grid with pretty much empty batteries or, like the Mercedes duo, with cold rear tyres on top because they did not want to use up any more battery than needed for extra burnouts.
It was a combination of multiple factors up and down the grid then that caused the varied starts.
Some were suffering from cold tyres, some from not having battery for extra deployment after 50km/h and some from just not getting the turbo into the right window.
While there is dialogue between the teams and the FIA about the idea of removing the formation lap recharge limit to avoid the start problems being so extensive, such a change is unlikely - with Ferrari one of those against rushing through tweaks.
However, that does not mean that China will deliver repeat drama.
That is because teams have been through a big learning process themselves in Australia so will be much better prepared to deal with things this time out.
They will certainly know a lot more about how to look after the battery better and not hit that recharge limit.
While this may force them to make some compromise in terms of their preparations for the start – potentially by having to choose between battery charge or tyre temperatures as the main focus – that could add some variability to the getaways.
Another factor in China is that, because there is a 190-metre offset between the start line and the timing line, it means that there will not be a repeat of the problem that Russell mentioned in Australia of those at the front of the grid suffering more from using their battery for formation lap burnouts.
As our exclusive photograph from the Shanghai grid shows, the 22nd grid spot is right in front of the timing line – which means all cars will have the same battery deployment for the formation lap.
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