Verstappen Wins Rain-Wrecked Sepang Thriller As Antonelli Hits Pit-Entry Bollard

Red flag, rain and a four-lap sprint: how Sepang unfolded

Max Verstappen won the Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, his first victory of 2026, after a race that started almost two hours late and finished with a four-lap sprint. Kimi Antonelli was second, 2.307s behind, and Lewis Hamilton took third after a drive through the whole order.

F1’s first race at Sepang since 2017 had everything: a thunderstorm before the start, an aborted start procedure, three neutralisations and a stranded Williams that kept the Safety Car out for most of the closing laps. The chequered flag fell at 18:20 local time, three hours and twenty minutes after the race was supposed to begin.

Away from the main battles, there were moments that barely made the broadcast. Race leader Antonelli hit the pit-entry bollard on lap 25, a piece of track furniture that had already been moved after concerns on Friday. Gabriel Bortoleto was the only driver to gamble on a pit stop under the lap 16 yellow flag, and Sergio Perez made seven stops on his way to 19th.

Verstappen also set the fastest lap of the race on the final lap, a 1:38.220. It is his first win since swapping his car number from 33 to 3, and it comes nine years after he won the last Malaysian Grand Prix at the same circuit.

A start that took almost two hours

The race was scheduled for 15:00 local time, but lights out only came at roughly 16:45, after a thunderstorm and then a power-unit fiasco on the formation laps.

The downpour. Rain hit Sepang around 45 minutes before the scheduled start and quickly turned torrential, with lightning around the circuit and standing water across the track. To make things harder, the FIA’s weather radar went offline 15 minutes before the original start and stayed down for roughly 25 minutes. The medical car lapped the circuit at 15:00 and reported conditions were not raceable. Race control’s message was simply that the start was delayed due to excessive rain.

The first attempt. The 10-minute signal came at 15:30 and the field left at 15:40, on intermediates, for laps behind the Safety Car. It fell apart within about five minutes. Isack Hadjar went off at Turn 3, polesitter Verstappen lost drive, and Hamilton crawled around before stopping on the start-finish straight. Leclerc, both Cadillacs, both Audis and Ocon’s Haas also struggled, while Lawson was slow away from the grid. Race control showed the red flag and the field filed into the pit lane in a jumbled order.

Why the cars stopped. This was the first wet race under the 2026 power-unit rules, and the slow running exposed a weakness. Without the MGU-H, the turbo spools down when a driver idles off the throttle behind the Safety Car. When the driver gets back on the power, the battery has to fill the torque gap, and once it is drained the engine falls outside the FIA’s torque-demand rules, which exist to stop traction control. Sky’s Anthony Davidson called it a horrible trap where the engine cannot re-accelerate. The FIA sent teams new software and parameters before the restart, Mercedes’ Bradley Lord confirmed.

The restart. The FIA put the cars back in their original grid order and set a new start time of 16:33. With the track drying, teams split between intermediates and slicks for a formation lap and a standing start. The lights finally went out at around 16:45 local time.

Lights out. Verstappen bogged down, and both Mercedes drivers went past: Antonelli took the lead from Russell, with Verstappen third. Hamilton’s choice of slicks from second on the grid backfired on the damp track, and he dropped down the order. Verstappen recovered quickly and passed Russell for second by lap 9.

Bottas out, Safety Car in. Valtteri Bottas locked a wheel on his softs at Turn 12, slid into the gravel and retired the Cadillac on lap 7. The Safety Car that followed opened the tyre game. Drivers on softs could switch to intermediates, while Verstappen went the other way, from intermediates to softs, betting on a drying track. Ferrari left Hamilton out on his starting softs, a call that looked costly at the time.

Verstappen takes control after the lap 12 restart

The race went green again on lap 12, and Verstappen’s switch to softs paid off immediately. He fought Antonelli wheel to wheel and came out ahead to take the lead. Russell followed him through, demoting his team-mate to third.

What we spotted that went largely unreported:

• Lap 16, yellow flag. A local yellow came out for what looked like a car part lying on the racing line. It was cleared without a Safety Car, but it was another reminder of how fragile parts had been all weekend: Bearman’s Haas shed carbon from a brake duct to cause a red flag in FP3.
• Bortoleto’s lone gamble. Under that yellow, Gabriel Bortoleto was the only driver to pit. The Audi driver had started on softs and switched to hards, apparently aiming to run to the end on one more set. Changing weather later forced him into more stops, and he finished with five.
• Lap 25, Antonelli and the pit-entry bollard. Antonelli’s Mercedes hit the bollard at the pit lane entry. That bollard had already been moved further back after concerns raised on Friday, and the incident suggests it still was not far enough out of the drivers’ path. Expect questions to the FIA about pit-entry furniture before F1 comes back to Sepang.
• Hamilton the outlier. By lap 25 Hamilton was the only driver in the field still on his starting set of tyres, the softs Ferrari had fitted before the start. The call that cost him early on was turning into an extra-long first stint.
• Ocon’s scruffy stop. Esteban Ocon ran onto the grass on his way into the pits, caught the Haas and made it into the pit lane without damage.

With rain forecast to return around lap 32, the pit walls spent the middle of the race guessing. The heavy shower never arrived, and Hamilton finally pitted from softs to mediums around lap 31.

Albon’s stranded Williams turns the race on its head

Alex Albon’s Williams stopped on lap 43 with what looked like a gearbox failure, and the Virtual Safety Car that followed reshuffled the front of the field.

Verstappen pitted under the VSC and rejoined second on used softs, with Antonelli inheriting the lead as Mercedes chose track position. Hamilton and Leclerc stopped at the same time. A lap later Mercedes brought both cars in, and Antonelli came out behind Verstappen again.

That looked like a missed chance for Mercedes when the VSC became a full Safety Car. The FIA explained that Albon’s car was stuck in gear, so marshals could not push it behind the barriers and a crane was needed. The car sat there for lap after lap: by lap 47 of 55 it was still not cleared, and by lap 50 the Safety Car was still out.

Lap 50 chaos. Then George Russell, running third, pulled off at the pit exit with a power-unit failure. His slowing Mercedes caught out the cars behind. Lando Norris, who had been warming his tyres hard behind the queue, came within inches of hitting the car in front, locked up and went off at Turn 1, dropping out of the top 10. The stewards announced after the race they would investigate Norris for driving erratically at Turn 1.

Russell’s retirement, a week after he won in Baku, means Antonelli extends his championship lead over his team-mate despite losing the win.

The Safety Car came in at the end of lap 51, leaving four laps to race. The order at the restart: Verstappen, Antonelli, Hadjar, Hamilton, Leclerc.

Four laps, and Hamilton steals the podium

Verstappen nailed the restart, getting on the power before the final corner to open a gap on Antonelli, and controlled the last four laps from there.

The real fight was for third. Hamilton, who had dropped through the field on slicks at the start and been left out on old softs by Ferrari, hunted down Isack Hadjar and passed the Red Bull to take the final podium place. After the way his afternoon began, it was one of the drives of the season.

Hadjar’s race then unravelled. Charles Leclerc went past him into Turn 1 at the start of lap 54 for fourth, leaving Hadjar to hold off Oscar Piastri for fifth, which he did.

Behind them, Racing Bulls‘ Liam Lawson pulled off a brave move on Piastri for sixth, but the McLaren got its nose back ahead into Turn 4 and Piastri held the place to the flag, with Lawson seventh.

Alonso’s best day of the year. Fernando Alonso brought the Aston Martin home eighth. The team’s previously reported best of 2026 was Alonso’s ninth at Zandvoort, so this is a new high for the Honda-powered project. His engineer congratulated him over the radio, singling out the tough conditions.

Heartbreak for Audi. Nico Hulkenberg climbed to tenth in the closing laps, only to slip back to eleventh behind Arvid Lindblad before the flag. Hulkenberg’s hopes now rest with the stewards: if Norris gets a five-second penalty, he would drop behind Hulkenberg and the Audi would move into the points.

Fastest lap on the final lap. Verstappen capped the win with a 1:38.220 on lap 55, the quickest lap of the race. Hamilton set the fastest first sector (24.992s), with Verstappen quickest in sectors two and three.

Talking points from Sepang

• Perez’s seven pit stops. Sergio Perez visited the pit lane seven times and still finished 19th for Cadillac. Mixed conditions explain part of it, but no other finisher stopped more than five times.
• Lindblad’s charge. Racing Bulls rookie Arvid Lindblad gained 12 places to finish tenth and score a point, the biggest climb of the day.
• Antonelli on a knife edge. Mercedes reminded Antonelli over the radio during the late Safety Car that he was carrying track-limits strikes, so he had no margin to defend aggressively against Verstappen at the restart.
• Norris under investigation. Norris crossed the line ninth, but the stewards will look at his erratic driving at Turn 1 during the lap 50 Safety Car. The result in the lower points could still change.
• Hamilton’s two-stop recovery. Hamilton made just two stops, soft to medium around lap 31 and medium to soft under the VSC. He was the only driver in the top ten with fewer than three stops.
• Three retirements. Bottas (lap 7, crash), Albon (lap 43, gearbox) and Russell (lap 50, power unit) were the only non-finishers.

Provisional classification

Norris’s ninth place is subject to a post-race stewards’ investigation.