Lewis Hamilton started the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia second on the grid, on dry-weather slick tyres, on a wet track. By lap four he was seventeenth. He finished third, and the team radio shows the call was his.
Max Verstappen won the 2026 Bahrain Grand Prix at Sepang by 2.307 seconds from Kimi Antonelli, taking his first victory of the season after 55 laps of a race that was delayed twice before it started and interrupted twice by the Safety Car once it had.
It was the first Formula 1 race held in Malaysia since 2017, the Bahrain round having been relocated to Sepang, and it produced the most chaotic opening ten laps of the season.
Every message quoted here comes from our own archive, and you can hear the whole session, both sides of each conversation, on the Bahrain Grand Prix race radio page
Verstappen started from pole on intermediates and was sixth by lap two. Antonelli and George Russell both cleared him in the wet opening laps, and for a while the race looked like it belonged to Mercedes.
What turned it was lap nine. Valtteri Bottas spun into the gravel, the Safety Car came out, and the field pitted onto slicks on a circuit drying faster than anyone had planned for. Verstappen took fresh softs and used the restart to pass both Mercedes. He was never headed again, and he set the fastest lap of the race on lap 55, the final lap, at 1:38.220.
Three of his four stints were on soft tyres. The intermediate opening stint lasted nine laps, and the rest of his afternoon was a slick-tyre sprint.
Hamilton did the opposite, and it worked
Ferrari sent Hamilton out on soft slicks while the rest of the leading group ran intermediates. The cost was immediate: second on the grid, seventeenth by lap four.
In the opening laps he was blunt about it. "it's so slippery guys, it's dangerous," he told the pit wall, and his engineer's answer was simply "we need to survive the first couple of laps".
Then came the exchange that decided the podium.
"It's getting drier, tyres starting to work a bit more. Do you think that's a smart thing to do?" Hamilton asked. The engineer offered him the choice: "If you're happy to stay out, we can gamble." Hamilton's reply was not a question. "you have to gamble. It's not too late. You have to stay out."
He stayed out. That first set of softs ran from lap one to lap 31, thirty-one laps on a single set, while every car that had started on intermediates had already stopped. By the time the circuit came to him, he was on rubber that worked and his rivals were managing tyres fitted too early.
He was quick enough that other teams built their races around him.
"OK, so Hamilton's clearly fast, he's going to go through cars and we need to go with him," McLaren told Oscar Piastri, who finished sixth.
Hamilton's own verdict afterwards was measured rather than triumphant.
"Yeah guys, great job with the pit stops, and the strategy there, really well done during the race. Obviously, that was more on the table for us today, but until next time."
Russell was third with five laps to go
The podium was not Hamilton's on merit alone. Russell had run the whole race in the top three and was still third on lap 50 when the Mercedes power unit let go.
"Jake, PU, something feels weird, tumult, engine breaking, PU hot, I think PU's broken OK, we need to stop the car, stop the car Guys, sorry for that," he said, the transcript running his words and his engineer's reply together as the car was shut down.
He is still classified twentieth, having completed enough of the distance, but he scored nothing. Hamilton inherited third, and Ferrari added Charles Leclerc's twelve points for fourth on top of it.
Antonelli, beaten by Verstappen at the restart and holding second for the rest of the afternoon, was thinking about his team mate before himself.
"Yeah, thank you guys, it was difficult today, congrats Max, and yeah, sorry for George," he told the pit wall. His engineer called it "a real kick in the guts for George and the team".
2026 Bahrain Grand Prix result
Gaps come from the official classification, not from lap timing.
Pos
Driver
Team
Gap
Points
1
MaxVerstappen
Red BullRBR
1:47:14.808
25
2
KimiAntonelli
MercedesMER
+2.307
18
3
LewisHamilton
FerrariFER
+4.919
15
4
CharlesLeclerc
FerrariFER
+7.258
12
5
IsackHadjar
Red BullRBR
+8.571
10
6
OscarPiastri
McLarenMCL
+9.454
8
7
LiamLawson
Nico Hulkenberg was eleventh for Audi, ahead of Lance Stroll, Franco Colapinto and the Haas pair of Oliver Bearman and Esteban Ocon. Pierre Gasly, Carlos Sainz, Gabriel Bortoleto and Sergio Perez completed the classified runners. Russell was classified twentieth after his late retirement, while Alexander Albon and Bottas were not classified.
Norris finishing ninth for two points is the result with the longest shadow. He arrived level on points with Verstappen and left level with him again, both now 132 behind the leader.
What it does to the championship
Pos
Driver
Points
1
KimiAntonelli
320
2
GeorgeRussell
236
3
LewisHamilton
214
4
CharlesLeclerc
191
5
LandoNorris
188
6
MaxVerstappen
188
Antonelli leads by 84 points, and Mercedes lead the constructors' championship on 556 from Ferrari on 405, McLaren on 316 and Red Bull on 298.
Verstappen won the race and gained nothing on the driver he needs to catch, because Antonelli finished directly behind him. That is the shape of this championship: the car that wins on Sunday is not the car winning the season.
The radio is the part the timing screen misses
The classification says Hamilton finished third, 4.919 seconds behind the winner. It does not say he was seventeenth on lap four, that he ran 31 laps on one set of tyres, or that when his engineer offered him a way out he told them to gamble instead.
That is why we keep the archive. Every message from this session, both sides of it, with the transcript colouring itself by who is speaking, sits on the Bahrain Grand Prix race radio page, and the searchable record runs back to 2018.
Want the radio live, as it happens? The Formula Dream app plays driver radio during the session with the transcript running beside the audio, alongside live timing, every FIA document as it is published, and the full weekend timeline. Download Formula Dream for iOS and Android.
Five Miami Grands Prix have been held since 2022, and only one was won from pole: Kimi Antonelli's in 2026. Max Verstappen won from ninth in 2023, and Lando Norris took his first win there in 2024. Every winner, grid slot and safety car, measured.
George RussellMercedes · Bahrain Grand Prix 2026 · Race · 18:12:28 local
DriverJake, PU, something feels weird, tumult, engine breaking, PU hot, I think PU's broken OK, we need to stop the car, stop the car Guys, sorry for that, I'm
