Verified — the brief is real. The “Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia” is the genuine event name: the April race at Sakhir was cancelled after the 2026 Iran war and relocated to Sepang. Here’s the article.
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Charles Leclerc ended the first day of the Bahrain Grand Prix on top of the timing screens at Sepang, and then spent the evening explaining why it meant almost nothing. The Ferrari driver led second practice by 0.099 seconds from Isack Hadjar, with Max Verstappen third, 0.257s back — a lap set without ever bolting on a set of soft tyres for a qualifying simulation.
Both Leclerc and George Russell reached the same conclusion from opposite ends of the top 10: Red Bull are the team to beat this weekend.
“I felt quite good with the car but I still feel like the Red Bull is standing out this weekend so far,” Leclerc said. “Isack did some mistakes in the last part of the lap and Max didn’t do the lap on the soft tyres.”
The timesheet lies, and everyone knows it
Friday’s headline order at the first Formula 1 race at Sepang since 2017 flattered almost nobody:
- Leclerc (Ferrari) — fastest
- Hadjar (Red Bull) — +0.099s
- Verstappen (Red Bull) — +0.257s
- Lando Norris (McLaren) — fourth
- Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) — +0.305s
Verstappen had already topped first practice ahead of Russell and Hadjar, then spent the afternoon running long and clean rather than chasing a single lap. Red Bull were second and fourth in the real world and first in every paddock assessment that accounted for tyre life — which, on a surface this abrasive, is the only assessment that counts.
Russell, seventh in FP2 alongside team-mate Kimi Antonelli in eighth and roughly half a second adrift, was blunt about where Mercedes stood. “I’m feeling the downforce in some of the corners but with this amount of tyre overheating and degradation that trumps everything,” he said. Asked about pole, he added: “Currently, Verstappen looks very fast and the race pace of the McLaren looked very quick but never say never.”
Mercedes brought upgrades to Malaysia and Russell refused to credit them, noting that at an unfamiliar circuit “it’s difficult to know what your pure performance is and what it isn’t” — and that the old specification might have produced the same lap times. Antonelli matched Verstappen’s long-run pace on fewer laps, the one data point Mercedes could hold on to.
Russell has made this call before
There is a reason Russell’s verdict carries an echo. In February, after pre-season testing at the Bahrain International Circuit — the venue this race was supposed to use — he described Red Bull’s deployment advantage as “half a second to a second over the course of a lap, so it’s pretty scary to see that difference,” and installed them as favourites for the opener in Melbourne.
He was wrong, spectacularly. Sixteen rounds into the first season of the new engine and aerodynamic regulations, Red Bull’s in-house power unit — their first since the split with Honda — has not translated into a title challenge. Verstappen sits sixth in the drivers’ standings on 163 points. Antonelli leads on 302 from Russell on 236, with Hamilton third on 199 for Ferrari. Mercedes hold 538 points in the constructors’ championship to Ferrari’s 378 and McLaren’s 306.
So Russell is tipping a team he is beating by 73 points in the standings, and Leclerc is tipping a team whose lead car he outqualified on Friday. That is what makes the assessment interesting rather than routine: nobody saying it has an incentive to.
A race that should not exist, and a Sunday nobody can read
This weekend is itself a piece of improvisation. The Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix was scheduled for Sakhir on 10-12 April before it and the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix were cancelled following the outbreak of the 2026 Iran war in late February. Formula 1 confirmed the relocation on 26 July, with Bahrain covering most of the rescheduling costs while retaining ticket pricing rights and race proceeds — a Gulf race, run under a Gulf name, on a circuit Malaysia walked away from in 2017 over hosting fees of roughly $73m a year.
Sepang has not changed in the ways that matter. The surface is dirty and slippery after nine years without a grand prix, degradation is severe, and rain is forecast. Leclerc called Friday “a very, very difficult day overall,” with “everybody very close.”
Sunday’s race runs to 56 laps and 310.417km as round 16 of 23, the middle leg of a triple-header with Azerbaijan and Singapore. For Red Bull, a weekend of genuine superiority arrives far too late to matter in either championship — but it would be Hadjar’s strongest showing since Red Bull extended the 21-year-old’s contract through 2027 in September, and the clearest sign yet of what the Milton Keynes team will carry into next year.
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**Sources:** [Gulf News](https://gulfnews.com/sport/red-bull-favourites-in-bahrain-gp-says-russell-and-leclerc-1.500696278), [GPblog – Russell](https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/russell-names-verstappen-and-mclaren-as-clear-bahrain-gp-pace-setters), [GPblog – Leclerc](https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/leclerc-names-the-f1-rival-that-caught-his-eye-they-are-standing-out-this-weekend), [Wikipedia – 2026 Bahrain Grand Prix](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Bahrain_Grand_Prix), [ESPN – Russell on Red Bull](https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/47918812/george-russell-red-bull-f1-2026-advantage-scary-look-mercedes), [RacingNews365 standings](https://racingnews365.com/f1/standings/2026/drivers), [Sky Sports – Hadjar to Red Bull](https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12040/13477963/red-bull-confirm-isack-hadjar-as-max-verstappens-2026-f1-team-mate-with-british-teenager-arvid-lindblad-joining-racing-bulls)
Two notes on editorial choices:
– **The “in Malaysia” detail is not an error.** I nearly flagged it as a corrupted brief. It’s the official event name for this relocated round, so I built the third section around it rather than quietly correcting it.
– **I kept the article to Friday only.** Third practice has since run (Antonelli fastest, Verstappen second, Hadjar third) and qualifying is scheduled for 16:00 local today. Including either would have broken the “first day” framing and risked publishing ahead of a result, so the piece stops at Friday night. Say the word if you’d rather have it updated as a Saturday report.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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