Reviewing the 2026 Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia

Key takeaways

• A software bug caused the restart chaos. Verstappen, Hamilton and roughly eight or nine other cars lost power on the formation lap. The FIA blamed an "unprecedented combination" of low-grip conditions, wet-weather energy management settings and Sepang's sector layout. Its technical department removed the energy limit constraint in the affected sectors through a software update, and teams then updated their power units individually. The race restarted from the original grid after a delay of close to an hour. Spanners argued the regulations have grown far too complex and now carry single points of failure, and Verstappen used the moment to push his V8 argument.
• Tire choice decided the early race. Verstappen, Antonelli and Russell started on inters while most of the front runners, including Ferrari on softs and McLaren on mediums, chose slicks. After a standing start, everyone on slicks dropped back. Hamilton lost 12 seconds to Antonelli in the middle sector of the first restart lap alone. The hosts did not blame the initial guess, because information was thin. They criticized teams that kept running slicks after Verstappen reported it was still wet, and a pit wall that let Hamilton fall about 60 seconds behind before calling him in.
• Hamilton's podium hides a weekend of Ferrari errors. He fell to 15th, did not pit until lap 31, and still finished third. Spanners argued Ferrari had a car capable of fighting Verstappen and Antonelli. They had burned their only spare medium set in Q1, and the inters from the formation laps did not count because the race was never declared wet. Leclerc, by contrast, struggled with rear thermal degradation.
• Mercedes' Saturday problems may have been heat rather than upgrades. Toto Wolff called the pace drop "very difficult to understand" and cited drag and low-speed understeer. Kimi finished second and Russell ran well until a power unit failure. Spanners suspects the engine suffered in the heat. He thinks the performance will repeat in similarly hot Singapore and that Mercedes' customer teams being slow too undermines the upgrade explanation.
• The VSC-to-safety-car sequence rewarded fresh tires. Under the VSC on lap 44, Verstappen pitted for softs. Antonelli and Russell pitted a lap later, and then a full safety car came out for Albon's stopped car. The hosts debated why the VSC lasted so long before the escalation. Spanners backed Mercedes pitting Kimi on pace grounds, because Verstappen had already carved through them after the first safety car. Meg noted that a late Russell stoppage nearly produced a finish under safety car.
• Sepang's last-minute event showed strain, but Aston Martin made progress. Organizers sold about 100,000 tickets against estimates of 50,000 to 75,000. Fans faced long shuttle and water lines, and some walked six miles along a highway. Lance Stroll completed every lap on the lead lap for the first time this season. Alonso, who finished eighth, was within 1.5 seconds of the best Q2 lap, a modest step forward.

Notable moments

• Sepang's CEO said earlier in the week that the track had used cloud seeding to clear haze, which prompted jokes that it worked too well.
• Esteban Ocon joked that the power loss felt like having to restart Windows.
• Hamilton radioed on the formation lap that slicks felt "pretty dangerous," and the team did not listen until much later.
• Meg read George Russell's push for cooling vests against a motorsport.com report that cost cap exemptions of $50,000 and $75,000 already exist for such systems.
• Spanners compared Russell's heat complaints to his own time in nuclear, biological and chemical warfare suits, and recalled Verstappen's quip about the sauna.
• Reports that Bahrain flew in 561 marshals emerged, though the equipment shortfalls were never fully explained.
• Alonso called the race one of the greatest of his career, a line Spanners says he has heard Alonso use many times before.

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