Round 16 – Sepang
Introduction
This week, Formula One was in Malaysia for the first time in nine years. The Bahrain Grand Prix wasn’t able to be held in April when it was initially scheduled, so they held it in Malaysia instead, and called it the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia. Some of the drivers had never raced at the Sepang Circuit before, so it was interesting to see how they did. Lewis Hamilton, who had raced here in the past, was starting a Grand Prix for the 397th time in his career.
Qualifying – Saturday, October 3
Haas sent their cars out first, which didn’t end up helping them because both of their drivers got eliminated in the first round of qualifying. Isack Hadjar and Franco Colapinto both had five place grid penalties for changing components of their power unit, and Arvid Lindblad had a thirty place penalty for the same thing. Max Verstappen took pole with ten minutes left in the session and stayed there for the whole session. Charles Leclerc qualified second and was immediately demoted to third by his own teammate (Lewis Hamilton) qualifying second. Oscar Piastri qualified fourth, which was probably one of his better results in a long time. Both Aston Martins, surprisingly, made it into the second round of qualifying for the first time all season, and Gabriel Bortoleto qualified eighth, which was good for Audi. Both Cadillacs, Haases, Nico Hülkenburg and Alex Albon were eliminated at the end of the session.
Max took pole once again in Q2 with nine minutes left in the session, and Kimi Antonelli qualified second. Charles qualified second after that, and Lewis qualified third. Kimi’s time was deleted due to track limits, which to be honest was a long time coming. (The fact that he hasn’t got a track limits penalty yet is insane, but I suppose that’s what his engineer is for.) Oscar qualified second and Kimi qualified third. Both Racing Bulls, Both Aston Martins, Carlos Sainz, and Franco Colapinto were all out at the end of the session.
George took pole at the start of Q3, and then Isack Hadjar took it soon after. Charles qualified second, and then Lewis qualified second. Max took pole with seven minutes left in the session, and Kimi ended up qualifying fourth. (It was a very stressful end of Q3 for me.) Max got his first pole position of the season, and Lewis qualified second. Isack qualified third, but because of his five place penalty, he was bumped down to eighth. Kimi was bumped up to p3, Charles was bumped up to p4, and Lando Norris was bumped up to p5. It was the first time since 2024 that Lewis and Max would be starting on the front row (p1 and p2) together.
Race Day – Sunday, October 4
The Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia immediately started out chaotically. It was pouring so much that there was a delayed start almost immediately. The medical car was sent out every five minutes to assess the conditions on track. I believe the delay lasted for forty minutes, and then they sent everyone out to do the formation lap, which was just more chaos. Multiple cars were having issues—Max Verstappen couldn’t accelerate, Lewis Hamilton had no power, etc—and apparently it was a software issue. There were so many cars stopped or moving so slowly that the session was red flagged and the start procedure was suspended for a while. The entire delay (the previous one and the second one) lasted for ninety one minutes, I believe. When the race finally started, the chaos didn’t stop. Pierre Gasly went off track but managed to get himself back on without an incident. Both of the Ferraris were on soft tires, which meant that they had virtually no grip on the damp track and had horrible starts; they dropped all the way to the back of the grid. Max Verstappen was on intermediate tires, which meant that he had better grip than everyone on the soft tires. Checo Perez, Oscar Piastri, Gabriel Bortoleto, Lance Stroll and Nico Hülkenburg all pit for intermediate tires. Kimi Antonelli was in the lead and George Russell was in second. Charles and Lewis, meanwhile, were in the no man’s land of p17 and p15, thanks to Ferrari being Ferrari about the strategy. Max had at this point moved up to p2 and Isack had moved up to p4.
Valtteri Bottas went off into the gravel and caused a chain reaction of pit stops: George, Kimi, and Max all pit with no change in the lineup (Max was still p1, George was still p2, and Kimi was still p3). Overtake was enabled again—it had been disabled due to the weather—and racing was once again underway. Lewis had made his way up to p9 by this point, and Racing Bulls’ rookie Arvid Lindblad was up fifteen places from where he’d started at the back of the grid. Lewis was rapidly making up places and was now up to p6. Kimi overtook George for p2, and Gabriel Bortoleto got a ten second penalty for impeding and bumping into Carlos Sainz. Lewis moved up to p5, and Charles moved up to p10. Charles and Oscar made very quick work of overtaking and made their way up to p8 (Charles) and p6 (Oscar) in a matter of laps. Kimi and Max pit again with no change in the order, and Lewis was once again battling someone for p4, except this time it was Isack Hadjar.
Fernando Alonso had, by some miracle, made his way up to p10 in his Aston Martin. Alex Albon had a gearbox issue and as a result brought out a virtual safety car. Max, Charles, Lewis, Kimi, and George all pit, and Max came out in first. A full safety car was called so that Alex’s car could be removed from the track. George’s power unit decided that it had had enough and died during the closing laps, which honestly is the cherry on top of George’s absolutely terrible season. Lewis overtook Isack for p3, Kimi finished in p2, and Fernando Alonso finished inp8. Charles finished p4. Max won his first race of the season, and he now holds the record for the longest time between back-to-back wins at a circuit. He also tied Michael Schumacher’s record for the second most wins with a single team (Ferrari for Schumacher and Red Bull for Max) at 72; Lewis holds the record for the most with 84 at Mercedes.
I have no idea what my predictions are for Singapore. It’s a sprint weekend, which means that there’s another qualifying session and another race, but both are shorter than a normal qualifying and race. It’ll probably be a Mercedes win and pole for everything; George is starting from the back of the grid for the race because they upgraded his power unit, so we’ll see how he does.
