Verstappen masters Sepang chaos
Max Verstappen claimed his first victory of the 2026 Formula 1 season at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia on Sunday, overcoming a race that was twice delayed and twice interrupted by Safety Cars. The Dutchman, who had been dominant all weekend, lost the lead to the Mercedes drivers from pole when the race finally began but fought back to reclaim first place and built a gap of more than 10 seconds over Kimi Antonelli before the second Safety Car was deployed with nine laps remaining after Alex Albon's stranded Williams took time to recover. Verstappen made no mistakes at the restart and took his first win since last year's season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the 72nd of his career.[S1][S2]
Antonelli finished second, 2.307 seconds behind, to extend his championship lead to a season-high 84 points over Mercedes team-mate George Russell, who had been running third with five laps to go but was forced to retire during the second Safety Car when a suspected power-unit failure stuck his car. Russell's retirement came a week after a dominant victory in Baku had appeared to offer him a glimmer of hope in the title race. Charles Leclerc and Isack Hadjar completed the top five.[S1][S2]
Hamilton's charge from 18th to third
Lewis Hamilton started alongside Verstappen on the front row but dropped to 18th after Ferrari chose to start on slick tyres on a drying but still-too-wet track, a decision that quickly proved flawed as he and team-mate Charles Leclerc plummeted towards the back of the field, more than a minute off the lead behind those who had chosen intermediates. A timely first Safety Car on lap nine closed the pack back up, and Hamilton, having told the Ferrari pit wall to wait for conditions to come back towards them rather than pitting for intermediates as Leclerc had done, showed consistently blistering pace to work his way back up the order. He overtook Red Bull's Isack Hadjar after the late restart to secure third and end Ferrari's five-race podium drought, with Leclerc also soon passing the Frenchman to take fourth following his own recovery drive after his additional early stop.[S1][S2]
McLaren's mixed day and midfield battles
Oscar Piastri finished sixth for McLaren, who had also gambled by fitting dry tyres to their cars for the start. Lando Norris had been running close behind his team-mate in seventh but, just moments after Russell had pulled up to retire on the inside of the pit straight under the Safety Car, misjudged his braking and slithered through the gravel at Turn One, dropping to ninth. Liam Lawson drove strongly to seventh for Racing Bulls, backed up by team-mate Arvid Lindblad in 10th, while Fernando Alonso claimed a season-best eighth for Aston Martin to cap their best weekend of a troubled season so far.[S1][S2]
The race day unfolded amid tropical conditions at Sepang, with heavy rain arriving just as drivers prepared to head to the dummy grid, 40 minutes before the formation lap. The downpour, accompanied by thunder and lightning, forced Race Control to delay the scheduled 8am BST start. After a 40-minute wait, cars were released for exploratory formation laps behind the Safety Car, but the situation turned surreal when Verstappen reported a power issue and Hamilton suffered throttle problems, sending him tumbling down the order. With software glitches affecting several 2026 power units, Race Control suspended the start procedure and sent cars back to the pit lane. The race finally got underway at 16:33 local time, with the 55 laps twice disrupted by Safety Cars.[S1][S3]
