By Rudy Falco | October 7, 2026
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA - OCTOBER 4: Max Verstappen of the Netherlands and Oracle Red Bull Racing celebrates with his trophy on the podium after winning the F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain in Malaysia at Sepang Circuit on October 4, 2026 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (Photo by Kym Illman/Getty Images)
Last week I told you Kimi Antonelli would win at Sepang, Max Verstappen would finish second and George Russell would hold on for third, and I threw in an Aston Martin retirement as the safest call I'd make all year. I got all four wrong. Verstappen won the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia from pole, Lewis Hamilton fell a minute behind and still finished third, Russell's engine let go while he was running third, and both Aston Martins finished. Fernando Alonso even scored four points, one more than the team had managed in the first 15 races combined. So much for safe.
"It's a really nice one, you know, after the year that we've had and the progression that we've made," Verstappen told David Coulthard on the podium, and that's about as emotional as he gets in public. It was his 72nd win and his first in 309 days. A little later, in front of the F1 TV cameras, he admitted that a lot of people had stopped believing Red Bull would win again this year, "including myself at times."
In case you missed it, the Bahrain round was called off in April and moved to Sepang in July, with Bahrain paying for it and keeping its name on it. It was F1's first race in Malaysia since 2017, and the crowd stuck with it, sitting on the grass banking under umbrellas through Friday practice, all day Saturday and right through Sunday's delay. Will Buxton called it "Sepang at its glorious best" on his SPEED show with Kevin Harvick.
Saturday had already told us something. Verstappen took pole with a 1:35.130, about three tenths clear of Hamilton, and Isack Hadjar qualified third, so Red Bull had both cars in the top three. Antonelli was fourth and Russell only eighth. Hadjar's engine penalty dropped him to eighth on the grid, which moved Antonelli up to third and Russell to seventh.
On Sunday, the weather took over. Rain came through right before the start and the race sat on hold for a long time, and when the cars finally went out behind the safety car, a power unit software problem started shutting cars down. Hamilton's Ferrari stopped on the back straight before he got it going again, a couple of Ferrari-powered cars at Haas and Cadillac had the same issue, and the FIA halted the procedure while the engine software got tweaked. "It was like the Lego race," Verstappen said in the press conference. At one point they were five wide on the straight, crawling along at the same limited speed. "These engines are so complicated and a lot of software is implemented," he said.
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA - OCTOBER 04: A Delayed Start message flashes up on the display alongside the starting lights prior to the F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain in Malaysia at Sepang Circuit on October 04, 2026 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (Photo by Alex Bierens de Haan/LAT Images)
By the time they lined up for a standing start the track was drying, and the grid split on tires. Both Ferraris went for slicks (the dry tires), along with Lando Norris and a big chunk of the midfield. Verstappen and the two Mercedes went on intermediates, the treaded tire for a damp track. Asked about starting on medium slicks, Norris said, "Well, it was the wrong one."
Mercedes got the jump off the line, and their tires had nothing to do with it. Verstappen's start bogged down, and Jolyon Palmer showed on his F1 TV analysis that he'd had to go for the clutch a second time when the turbo didn't spool. "It really shows how terrible Verstappen's start was," Palmer said, and it was so bad that Liam Lawson, starting 11th, was side by side with him into Turn 1. Both Mercedes went by, and for the first few laps their call looked like the right one. Hamilton, who'd started second on slicks, got swallowed up and dropped toward the back.
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA - OCTOBER 04: Andrea Kimi Antonelli of Italy driving the (12) Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team W17 leads George Russell of Great Britain driving the (63) Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team W17 Max Verstappen of the Netherlands driving the (3) Oracle Red Bull Racing RB22 Red Bull Ford Powertrains Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain driving the (44) Scuderia Ferrari SF-26 and the rest of the field at the start during the F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain in Malaysia at Sepang Circuit on October 04, 2026 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (Photo by Joe Portlock/LAT Images)
Verstappen had the pace to fix it. He got back past Russell early. When Valtteri Bottas spun his Cadillac into the gravel and brought out the first safety car, the intermediate runners all switched to slicks. Palmer was hard on Antonelli's restart, which he said was too cautious, and Verstappen went around the outside, took the lead and stayed there. Russell got by Antonelli in the same sequence, and the two Mercedes traded second place until Antonelli settled it on lap 21. "After the start I thought we could have had a chance to win today," Antonelli said, but once Verstappen was gone, "P2 was the maximum we could have achieved." Buxton's verdict on the winner was "a proper, proper drive in mixed conditions."
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA - OCTOBER 04: Max Verstappen of the Netherlands driving the (3) Oracle Red Bull Racing RB22 Red Bull Ford Powertrains leads Andrea Kimi Antonelli of Italy driving the (12) Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team W17 at the restart during the F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain in Malaysia at Sepang Circuit on October 04, 2026 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)
Want one drive to go back and watch? Make it Hamilton's. By his own account he'd written it off early. "Obviously, we had the wrong call at the beginning, which was so difficult, and I could see everyone just pulling away," he said in the press conference. "And as I could see on the screen, it was a minute down, and I thought that was kind of race over for us." Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur owned it: "We did not have the full picture of the track and, in the end, we got the call wrong." Asked what he'd say in the debrief, Hamilton had the line of the weekend: "Not going to go to the casino with the guys." He spent the rest of the race passing people, and Charles Leclerc did the same in the other Ferrari.
Then Alex Albon's Williams stopped with a gearbox problem, which brought out a Virtual Safety Car and then the full safety car. On lap 50, running third under that safety car, Russell's power unit failed. Mercedes deputy team principal Bradley Lord said Russell "came on the radio behind the safety car and said PU's starting to sound funny," and that was it. Hadjar inherited third, but his car lost power after the restart. "If this hadn't have happened, I am sure I would have been on the podium," he said. Hamilton passed him, Leclerc followed him through, and Ferrari took third and fourth with a car that had looked lost two hours earlier. Leclerc's summary was fair: "A lot of things went wrong in the first part, and everything that could have gone right did in the second part."
Verstappen won by 2.307 seconds over Antonelli, with Hamilton 4.919 behind. Leclerc was fourth, Hadjar fifth (his second race back after the wrist injury; he was on the podium in Baku), and Oscar Piastri sixth. Lawson was seventh, Alonso eighth, and Norris ninth after a trip through the gravel at Turn 1. "There are not many weekends where we can score points, so we executed well and took the opportunity," Alonso said. Arvid Lindblad started 22nd and last and finished tenth for the final point, on what he called "probably the busiest day of my F1 career." Russell, Albon and Bottas were the three retirements.
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA - OCTOBER 04: Race winner Max Verstappen of the Netherlands and Oracle Red Bull Racing, Second placed Andrea Kimi Antonelli of Italy and Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team, Third placed Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain and Scuderia Ferrari and the Oracle Red Bull Racing trophy delegate celebrate on track during the F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain in Malaysia at Sepang Circuit on October 04, 2026 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (Photo by Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images)
McLaren had a rough one. Piastri switched to inters on the way to the grid, Norris started on slicks, and neither of them was ever in the fight at the front. Team principal Andrea Stella didn't sugarcoat it: "The reality is that this weekend our car package was fourth in terms of performance." Sixth and ninth leaves Norris tied with Verstappen on points and McLaren 89 behind Ferrari for second in the constructors' standings. Cadillac is still waiting for its first point after 16 rounds.
It's Verstappen's first win of 2026. It's also the first win for Red Bull Ford Powertrains as an engine maker, in Red Bull's first year making engines. "To win our first race in our first year with our own power unit is pretty impressive," Verstappen said. Team principal Laurent Mekies said Verstappen "remained in control throughout the race" in "often chaotic circumstances." Guenther Steiner named Mekies his rockstar of the weekend on The Red Flags Podcast, describing a boss who was "always friendly, always with a smile, always polite" while people were saying the team was going nowhere. Red Bull hasn't caught Mercedes, but they're close enough now to win when a weekend breaks their way, and they weren't in the spring.
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA - OCTOBER 04: Race winner Max Verstappen of the Netherlands and Oracle Red Bull Racing, Laurent Mekies, Team Principal of Oracle Red Bull Racing and the Oracle Red Bull Racing team celebrate during the F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain in Malaysia at Sepang Circuit on October 04, 2026 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (Photo by Joe Portlock/LAT Images)
Russell's the one I feel for. "It is pure bad luck, but it still hurts," he said in Mercedes' statement. Sepang was his third retirement without points this year, and F1.com worked out that he's lost about 56 points to reliability this season, with the DNFs in Canada and Malaysia costing him 33 on their own. Asked by F1 TV whether the title was gone, he said, "Yeah, I'd say so," then added "never say never" and called the season "pretty relentless." Toto Wolff was angrier than I've heard him all year. "This has been our worst weekend of the season," he said. "We were not quick enough, and we were not reliable enough in Malaysia. That is the truth."
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA - OCTOBER 04: George Russell of Great Britain and Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team is given a ride by a marshal after retiring from the race during the F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain in Malaysia at Sepang Circuit on October 04, 2026 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)
Here's where the table stands with seven rounds left. Antonelli has 320 points, Russell 236, Hamilton 214, Leclerc 191, and Norris and Verstappen are tied on 188. Mercedes has 556 in the constructors' standings to Ferrari's 405, McLaren's 316 and Red Bull's 298. There are 183 points still on the table, counting Singapore's sprint, so Antonelli can't wrap it up this weekend even with a perfect one, and Russell isn't mathematically out yet, however he sounds. The earliest Antonelli can do it is Austin on October 25. If he wins both races this weekend and Russell scores nothing, he'd leave Singapore 117 points clear with 150 left, and he could wrap it up in Austin.
Verstappen's win also makes six different winners this year. Antonelli has eight, Russell three, Norris two, and Hamilton, Leclerc and Verstappen one apiece, so Mercedes has won 11 of the 16 races. Hamilton's now third in the standings, 22 points behind Russell, and he left Sepang aiming higher. "I thought today, as I said, was a chance for us potentially to try and fight Max for the win, but maybe we can do that next week," he said.
KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA - OCTOBER 04: Andrea Kimi Antonelli of Italy driving the (12) Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team W17 and Max Verstappen of the Netherlands driving the (3) Oracle Red Bull Racing RB22 Red Bull Ford Powertrains battle for track position during the F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain in Malaysia at Sepang Circuit on October 04, 2026 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (Photo by Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images)
Singapore is next, and this year's version is a strange one. For the first time, Marina Bay is hosting a sprint (the last one of 2026). Friday has first practice at 4:30 p.m. local time and sprint qualifying at 8:30 p.m. Saturday's 21-lap sprint starts at 5 p.m., in daylight, which is something we've never seen there, and qualifying for the Grand Prix follows at 9 p.m. The race is Sunday at 8 p.m. local, 62 laps. Singapore's 12 hours ahead of the East Coast, so that's 5 a.m. Saturday for the sprint, 9 a.m. Saturday for qualifying, and 8 a.m. Sunday for the Grand Prix. Sprint points go eight deep, from eight for the win down to one for eighth, so there are 33 points available to a driver who wins both races. Set an alarm for the sprint. It'll be worth it.
SINGAPORE STREET CIRCUIT, SINGAPORE - SEPTEMBER 13: A scenic view of the Singapore skyline at night and the Marina Bay Formula 1 street circuit during the Singapore GP at Singapore Street Circuit on September 13, 2018 in Singapore Street Circuit, Singapore. (Photo by Sam Bloxham/LAT Images)
The track is 4.927 kilometers (a little over three miles) with 19 corners, down from 23 before the layout was changed in 2023, and Hamilton set the lap record of 1:33.808 there last year. Vasseur called it "one of the toughest races of the year for everyone in the team," made tougher by coming at the end of a triple-header. Drivers can lose up to three kilos of sweat over two hours in that humidity, with the track running somewhere around 30 to 35 degrees Celsius. Pirelli is bringing its three softest tires (C3, C4 and C5), and most teams expect one stop. The forecast for the weekend has highs around 32°C and about a 40 percent chance of rain on Saturday and Sunday, which, after what we saw at Sepang, I'm taking a lot more seriously than I used to.
Singapore used to be the race where the safety car was almost guaranteed, but there wasn't one in 2024 or 2025, and all 20 starters finished last year. I don't expect that streak to last forever.
Russell won here last year from pole, with Verstappen second and Norris third, and now he'll start Sunday's race from the back after taking a new power unit. The penalty doesn't touch the sprint. "That is particularly frustrating given the way he drove last weekend and the result he deserved to be fighting for," Wolff said. Russell's own take, to PlanetF1, was darker: "I've got bad luck on my side." So what can he do from there? On a track where passing is this hard, starting at the back usually means your best hope is a safety car at the right time, and Singapore hasn't handed one out in two years.
SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE - OCTOBER 05: George Russell of Great Britain driving the (63) Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team W16 leads Max Verstappen of the Netherlands driving the (1) Oracle Red Bull Racing RB21 and the rest of the field at the race start prior to the F1 Grand Prix of Singapore at Marina Bay Street Circuit on October 05, 2025 in Singapore, Singapore. (Photo by Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images)
Mercedes has a decision to make, too. The upgrade package it brought to Sepang reportedly cost about three tenths a lap when it was supposed to find time, and Wolff said the team "will evaluate both the latest update package and our previous specification across the weekend." On a sprint weekend with one practice session, that's not much time to sort it out. "I think we will be in the fight for the podium for the coming races," Mekies said. Alonso, after Sunday, said Singapore is a place where "on paper we have some hope."
So here's how I see Singapore going.
Verstappen takes the sprint pole on Friday night and loses the start to Antonelli on Saturday, because Red Bull's starts have been a weak spot all year and Sepang showed it again. Over 21 laps with no pit window, Antonelli wins the sprint with Verstappen second and Norris third. Then Verstappen gets the Grand Prix pole on Saturday night by about a tenth over Antonelli, because Red Bull leaves Sepang fresh off a win, and Mercedes still won't know which version of its car it should be running. This time Verstappen gets away cleanly and leads into Turn 1. Antonelli tries the undercut (pitting first to jump ahead on fresher tires) around lap 20 and comes out about a second behind, which isn't close enough to pass anyone on this track. Then the safety car streak ends. Sergio Pérez puts his Cadillac in the wall a little after half distance and that's the end of his race, the safety car comes out for the first time here since 2023, and everyone who hasn't stopped gets a cheap pit stop. Verstappen has already stopped, and he holds the lead on the restart. Leclerc gets past Hamilton for third on that restart and holds it. Russell, from the back, works his way up to sixth, which leaves Hamilton within reach of second in the standings and Antonelli's lead somewhere near 100.
Verstappen, Antonelli and Leclerc, in that order.
I'll be up at 8 a.m. Sunday with a coffee, and I hope you will be too.
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