I expected heat, rain and a little Sepang chaos. I did not expect the race to spend more than 90 minutes waiting for the weather to calm down while several cars appeared to forget how to behave before the start. Very Malaysian. Very Formula 1.
When the race finally began, Kimi Antonelli took the lead from Max Verstappen and I immediately thought, “Fine, Max. You have made this difficult for yourself again.” Thankfully, Sir Max did not panic. He recovered the lead, managed the changing conditions and controlled the final part of the race to win his first Grand Prix of the season. People may call this a comeback, but I never felt Max had gone anywhere. He was simply waiting for the right weekend to remind everyone.
Kimi finished second and extended his championship lead, but the biggest surprise came from Lewis Hamilton. Starting from 18th after all the pre-race confusion, he fought through the field and finished third for Ferrari. That was not a quiet recovery. Lewis looked determined, aggressive and completely unwilling to let one horrible starting position ruin his afternoon.
At one point, he described the track as “dangerously slippery”, which was probably the most polite way of saying that Sepang had turned into a giant wet floor sign.
I was amazed by him. Ferrari also had a much better afternoon than I expected. Charles Leclerc finished fourth, giving the team both cars near the front after a weekend that had looked far less promising earlier on. It was not a Ferrari victory, but after watching them struggle for pace in recent races, I will happily accept a double recovery and avoid complaining for at least five minutes.
Fernando Alonso also deserves credit. He finished eighth and gave Aston Martin a strong result in a race where grip, tyres and weather were all behaving like they had personal problems. Alonso fought for every position, stayed patient and brought the car home when several others could not. This is exactly why you never completely count Fernando out.
But now we need to talk about George.
He was running in the fight for the podium and looked ready to rescue another difficult Mercedes weekend. Then, with five laps remaining, his power unit failed and his race disappeared. NOT AGAINA.
George later admitted that his luck is simply not supporting him at the moment. I genuinely felt that sentence. He has had strong pace, difficult strategy calls and technical problems arrive at exactly the wrong time. Sometimes it feels as though Luck has seen George coming and crossed the street.
I was honestly sad for George Russell.
Mercedes will take some comfort from Kimi’s second place, but George deserved to finish that race. He had worked his way into the podium fight and should have been celebrating points instead of standing beside a broken Mercedes.
Then Max won and my sadness came down to 50%, Lewis produced one of the best recoveries of the season, Kimi kept building his championship advantage and Alonso quietly delivered another valuable result. George, meanwhile, was once again left wondering what he has done to upset the F1 Gods.
Sepang gave us rain, delays, changing tyres, technical drama and a Ferrari recovery. I asked for chaos and it arrived with paperwork.
I rate the 2026 Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia a brilliant A2W 9/10.
Max is back on the top step, Lewis reminded everyone exactly who he is and George needs his luck to stop taking unpaid leave.
aKi Malik
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