Verstappen ends drought with rain-hit win in Malaysia return
Max Verstappen won the Bahrain Grand Prix at Sepang in Malaysia on Sunday, 4 October, giving himself and Red Bull their first victory of the season.
Verstappen beat Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli to second, with Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton third. Charles Leclerc was fourth for Ferrari and Isack Hadjar fifth. The Guardian
It did little to change the title maths. Antonelli left Sepang with an 84-point championship lead and seven meetings remaining.
Verstappen had started the day in the best possible place. He took pole position, his first of the season, with a lap of 1 minute 35.130 seconds, 0.298 seconds clear of Hamilton in second. Antonelli started third. Reuters
He did not stay there long. At the start, Antonelli and George Russell jumped ahead to make it a Mercedes 1-2, with Russell leaping from seventh on the grid to second while the polesitter slipped back. Formula 1 Verstappen fought back quickly, passing Antonelli in the early stages to take a lead he would keep.
Then the story became the weather. The start was first held for 45 minutes by heavy rain. When the cars finally tried to leave for the formation laps, several stopped on track and race control suspended the start again.
That second stoppage lasted another 53 minutes. The cars returned to the pit lane, the grid order was re-sorted, and the FIA uploaded new software parameters to the cars before racing could begin.
Hamilton had the wildest afternoon of all. He started on slick tyres, the smooth dry-weather tyres with no tread for clearing water, in wet conditions. He then suffered a software problem and stopped on track, falling as far back as 17th before charging through to third.
He was not alone in stopping. Esteban Ocon for Haas and Valtteri Bottas for Cadillac also came to a halt during the formation laps.
There was late heartbreak for Russell. He was running third with five laps to go when a power unit failure, a problem in the engine and hybrid system, forced him to retire.
The explanation for the formation-lap failures was technical. The 2026 cars use new power units with an almost 50-50 split between electrical and combustion power. In the slow, wet laps, drivers spent so long off the throttle that the turbo lost speed and the electrical energy was used up, leaving the engine unable to produce enough power to accelerate again within the FIA rules.
For Verstappen, it was a long wait ended. The win was his first since the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix the previous year, and his second in Malaysia after his 2017 victory. That 2017 race was the last held at the circuit before its return in 2026.
What makes this stand out is the contrast. Red Bull finally broke through on a day when nothing ran to plan, yet Antonelli still banked second and protected a commanding lead in the championship.
