Max Verstappen won a chaotic, rain-hit Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday, October 4, with Monaco’s Charles Leclerc finishing fourth for Ferrari. The race was held at Sepang in Malaysia after the original Bahrain round was cancelled because of the war in the Middle East.
The Bahrain race was planned for April 10 to 12 and was cancelled along with the Saudi Arabian round. Formula 1 and the FIA announced on July 26 that Sepang would host a replacement under the Bahrain name, in the gap between the Azerbaijan and Singapore Grands Prix. It was the sport’s first visit to the Malaysian circuit since 2017.
Verstappen converted pole position into his first win of 2026, and Red Bull’s first of the season. It was the 72nd victory of his career, and his first since last year’s season finale in Abu Dhabi.
Kimi Antonelli took second for Mercedes, 2.3 seconds behind. Lewis Hamilton was third, ending a five-race podium drought for Ferrari. Leclerc followed in fourth, ahead of Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar, Oscar Piastri and Liam Lawson.
Leclerc got there the hard way. He needed a recovery drive after an additional early stop, then passed Hadjar soon after Hamilton did, once the race restarted for the final time.
The race was a mess before it began. Torrential rain and lightning at Sepang first pushed back the 3pm local start. When the field finally rolled out behind the safety car, several cars stopped on the formation lap, Hadjar went off, and Hamilton dropped to the back of the pack. The resulting red flag meant lights out came 93 minutes after the scheduled start.
The FIA later apologised. Its single-seater director, Nikolas Tombazis, said an unprecedented mix of low engine speed, low grip, wet-weather energy management settings and the circuit’s sector layout had caused a loss of power on a number of cars. A software update then had to be installed on every car, which took around 20 minutes. More testing, he conceded, might have caught the problem in time.
The 55 laps themselves were interrupted by two safety cars, with a crossover from intermediates to slicks and plenty of overtaking.
The biggest blow came late. George Russell was running third, five laps from the end, when he stopped under the second safety car with a suspected power unit failure. He said he was “beyond disappointment” and that his title chances were all but over.
Antonelli now leads Russell by 84 points in the drivers’ championship.
Formula 1 moves on to Singapore next, on October 11.