Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia Notebook: Russell’s Baku Win Leaves Antonelli 66 Clear as Sepang Starts From Zero

Bahrain Grand Prix Malaysia race weekend notebook — updated Wednesday, September 30, 2026. All times Eastern (ET) unless noted.

Formula 1 arrives at Sepang for the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia with the championship leader needing to answer a question he set himself. Kimi Antonelli still leads by 66 points, but George Russell’s win from pole in Baku last Saturday, while Antonelli crashed out of Q1 and salvaged fifth, took 15 points out of that margin in one afternoon. The next test comes at a circuit neither Mercedes driver has raced in F1, with Mercedes bolting on its first real upgrade in months.

1. The headline development: Baku reset the Mercedes title fight

Confirmed

• Russell won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Saturday, Sept. 26, from pole, finishing 0.196s ahead of Max Verstappen after 51 laps. Official timing puts his race time at 1:38:02.143. It was his third win of 2026.
• Antonelli hit the wall at Turn 1 in Q1, was eliminated from qualifying and recovered to fifth, 14.512s behind the winner.
• The drivers’ standings now read Antonelli 302, Russell 236. Before Baku the gap was 81 points; it is now 66, with eight rounds to go.
• Antonelli has since said he drove “like my grandma” in Baku and has promised to “re-establish the order” at Sepang (AFP, via Malay Mail).

Analysis

A 66-point lead is still a big lead, but the reason Baku matters is how it went wrong. Antonelli didn’t lose the points to bad luck. He lost them with a Q1 error at a street circuit, which is exactly the kind of mistake a title rival can use as leverage. Russell, meanwhile, has framed himself as the driver with nothing to lose. He told reporters he only needs to average just over eight points per round more than his team-mate to close the gap, according to Motor Sport. Sepang is the first chance to see whether that pressure changes anything.

Our full story of the Baku photo finish is in Today in Motorsport, September 28. The fallout, including Ferrari standing by Fred Vasseur, is in the September 29 Daily Motorsport Briefing.

2. What the timing shows heading into the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia

Azerbaijan Grand Prix, top 10 (official F1 classification):

Pos	Driver	Team	Gap	Pts
1	George Russell	Mercedes	1:38:02.143	25
2	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	+0.196s	18
3	Isack Hadjar	Red Bull	+10.704s	15
4	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	+14.136s	12
5	Kimi Antonelli	Mercedes	+14.512s	10
6	Lewis Hamilton	Ferrari	+22.382s	8
7	Arvid Lindblad	Racing Bulls	+31.159s	6
8	Esteban Ocon	Haas	+31.189s	4
9	Oliver Bearman	Haas	+31.929s	2
10	Carlos Sainz	Williams	+32.416s	1

Three details the table hides:

• Red Bull were the closest challengers, not Ferrari or McLaren. Verstappen and Hadjar finished second and third, and Verstappen set the fastest lap. Leclerc was 14.1s back in fourth. Hadjar’s podium came days after his Red Bull contract extension.
• McLaren came away with nothing. Lando Norris retired after the lap-36 restart crash and Oscar Piastri finished 13th after running in the top three early on. McLaren (306) are now 72 points behind Ferrari (378) in the constructors’ table.
• Six cars failed to finish. Both Alpines, Norris, Alex Albon and both Aston Martins were classified as retirements. Aston Martin’s weekend (Lance Stroll out on lap 7, Fernando Alonso on lap 20) says a lot about why keeping the same line-up for 2027 puts the pressure on the car.

Drivers’ standings after 15 rounds (top six): Antonelli 302, Russell 236, Hamilton 199, Norris 186, Leclerc 179, Verstappen 163. Constructors’: Mercedes 538, Ferrari 378, McLaren 306, Red Bull 263.

3. Three things that changed since Baku

Mercedes ends its upgrade freeze

Confirmed: Toto Wolff has confirmed a W17 update package for Sepang. “We are bringing an update package this weekend, and that is an important step for us,” he said (via PlanetF1). Motor Sport reports it is Mercedes’ first significant update since Canada. Verstappen’s response: “If they’re bringing an upgrade, it’s going to look a little bit more difficult for us.”

Analysis: In Baku, Mercedes didn’t bring a single new part and still won. The team has won 11 of 15 races, but Red Bull finished within two tenths of the win last weekend. An upgrade at a track with no recent data carries some correlation risk. If it works, it probably ends Red Bull’s hopes of joining the fight. The less obvious question is which Mercedes driver adapts to it faster at a Bahrain Grand Prix held in Malaysia, where neither has any F1 reference.

Colapinto takes a five-place grid penalty to Malaysia

Confirmed: The Baku stewards found Franco Colapinto “wholly or predominantly to blame” for the lap-36 restart collision at Turn 1. He locked up, hit Alpine team-mate Pierre Gasly, and Gasly was pushed into Norris. All three retired. The standard 10-second penalty could not be served because Colapinto retired, so it became a five-place grid drop for Sepang. The stewards said there was no basis for first-corner leniency because no other driver contributed. Norris has since apologized to Colapinto for comments he made immediately after the race.

Analysis: Alpine sit sixth in the constructors’ standings on 68 points, 15 behind Racing Bulls and 41 clear of Haas. A double DNF caused by their own driver is exactly the kind of result that keeps them from closing that 15-point gap. Wherever Colapinto qualifies, he starts five places lower, so Saturday’s job for him is to avoid anything that adds to it.

From a street circuit to a data blackout

Confirmed: Sepang has not held an F1 race since 2017. Because of the compressed schedule, Pirelli did not do its usual pre-event circuit mapping and based its tyre choice on the 2017 Malaysian Grand Prix. The C2-C3-C4 selection is one step harder than Baku. According to the Pirelli briefing reported by Yahoo Sports, the surface has not been resurfaced since 2017, apart from the Turn 6-12 section redone in 2023. Motor Sport reports that 12 of the 22 drivers have never raced here in F1, and that includes both Mercedes drivers. Forecasts call for heat, humidity and a risk of sudden thunderstorms. F1’s own data puts the pit-lane time loss at 23.7s. The lap record is 1m34.080s, set by Sebastian Vettel in 2017.

Analysis: This is the most consequential change of the three. Baku favors confidence on the brakes. Sepang is about managing an abrasive surface and thermal degradation over long, fast corners, and teams will have one hour of FP1 to find out how far off their simulations are. A one-stop is the likely baseline, but the harder allocation is meant to keep a two-stop in play. Friday long runs will tell us more than any headline lap time.

4. The decisive next session: Qualifying, Saturday, Oct. 3, 4:00 a.m. ET

Session times (ET): FP1, Fri. Oct. 2, 12:30 a.m. · FP2, Fri. Oct. 2, 4:00 a.m. · FP3, Sat. Oct. 3, 12:30 a.m. · Qualifying, Sat. Oct. 3, 4:00 a.m. · Race, Sun. Oct. 4, 3:00 a.m. (Local times are 12 hours later.)

Why qualifying: Antonelli’s Baku weekend went wrong on Saturday, and his answer at Sepang has to come on Saturday too. A clean run to Q3 on a track he has never raced removes the main thing Russell has to work with. Sepang’s two long straights mean it isn’t a one-lap lottery like Baku, since the 2017 race produced 73 completed passes. But against a Red Bull that matched Mercedes in race pace last weekend, starting at the front still matters.

What must happen and who to watch:

• Antonelli (Mercedes): needs a clean Saturday and to finish ahead of Russell. Even second place behind a Russell win costs him 7 points.
• Russell (Mercedes): has momentum and a new car package. Another win while Antonelli finishes off the podium would cut the lead to the low 50s.
• Verstappen and Hadjar (Red Bull): Verstappen is still chasing his first win of 2026 and won the last F1 race here, in 2017.
• Ferrari: Vasseur says Ferrari will also bring upgrades. Hamilton shares the Sepang pole record (five) and is third in the standings, 37 behind Russell.
• Colapinto (Alpine): starts five places behind wherever he qualifies.

5. Championship impact of the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia

The math (confirmed figures, our arithmetic): After Sepang there are seven Grands Prix and one sprint (Singapore) left. That means up to 208 points are still available across the final eight rounds, 8 × 25 plus 8 for a sprint win. The most any driver can gain on a rival in one Grand Prix is 25 points, so the title cannot be decided at Sepang. Russell (−66), Hamilton (−103), Norris (−116), Leclerc (−123) and Verstappen (−139) are all still mathematically alive.

Analysis: The realistic range after Sunday runs from about 91 points (Antonelli wins, Russell scores nothing) to about 41 (the reverse). Anything above 75 heading to the Singapore sprint weekend starts to look decisive. Anything under 55 turns this into a real inter-team fight, with seven rounds left for Mercedes to manage it. For everyone below them, Baku’s 15-point swing is a reminder that the gap comes down fastest when the leader makes a mistake.

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Sources: F1 official Azerbaijan GP classification; F1 drivers’ standings; F1.com on the Colapinto penalty; F1.com Need to Know; The Race session times; PlanetF1 (Wolff, Verstappen); Motor Sport; Malay Mail / AFP; Yahoo Sports (Pirelli).

About the Author

Lauren Miller

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Lauren Miller is a staff writer at Backfire Racing, covering Formula 1 and IndyCar racing with additional reporting on endurance and NASCAR.

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