> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.the-race.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # What we learned on the first day of F1's Malaysia return - URL: https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/what-we-learned-on-the-first-day-of-f1s-malaysia-return/ - Published: 2026-10-01T11:28:42.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-01T11:28:42.000Z - Description: F1's first day back at Sepang taught us plenty... - Author: The Race Team - Tags: Formula 1, #primary_homepage_feature Formula 1 is back in Malaysia after nine years away - and the first day back told us plenty about what to expect ahead of the weekend, as well as tying up some important loose ends from Baku. Here's what we learned on Thursday... ### What Mercedes upgrade is really worth ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/10/highlighted-comparison-upper-view-body-Mercedes-Sepang--1-.jpg) Mercedes has waited a long time to pull the pin on its major car upgrade that has now started to emerge at Sepang. The upgrade body cover was displayed in the pitlane on Thursday and we understand all the surfaces, bar the front and rear wings, have been redesigned on the W17\. It should deliver a notable step forward - simulations predict an improvement in the region of three tenths of a second per lap, but that still needs to be validated on track. Mercedes feels as if it’s been somewhat flattered by recent track layouts like Monza and Baku favouring its car and exposing the weaknesses of others like McLaren, who went from being faster than Mercedes in Hungary and Madrid to struggling with a draggy car at Monza and Baku. So it wouldn’t have necessarily been fastest at Sepang without this upgrade, but if it does deliver that expected performance here, it could be very bad news for its rivals…**\- Josh Suttill** ### Ocon hoping for last-gasp 2027 shot Esteban Ocon is not ready to accept a repeat of 2019, when he lost his F1 seat and spent a year on the sidelines, after being dropped by Haas for next season. Ocon urged media "don’t write me off yet" as he spoke for the first time since his split from Haas was announced on Wednesday. He is adamant his future is in F1 even though there is no obvious vacancy on the 2027 grid given all remaining seats are expected to be taken by incumbent drivers. "It's clear that's where I belong, that's where I want to be," Ocon said. "So I’m not going to look elsewhere." Ocon had a year on the sidelines when he lost his Force India drive to Lance Stroll following the latter’s father leading a revival of the team when it fell into administration. "It's not a 2019 yet," said Ocon. "I don't want to feel 2019 again. If I have to, I will. But as I said, you never know what can happen in F1\. There can be opportunities to come." Ocon refused to discuss the reasons for losing his Haas seat beyond insisting "the reasons are not performance, that’s clear". [As reported by The Race](https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/all-the-reasons-the-ocon-haas-relationship-fell-apart/), Haas eventually concluded that, given a multi-million dollar salary, Ocon’s results and the way he worked with the team, particularly in tricky moments, did not merit keeping him on. But Ocon indirectly pushed back against this on Thursday in Malaysia. He said it was agreed before he joined that his job was "to be straightforward, no politics, straight to the point". "I've always had to fight super hard in F1 for everything I had," said Ocon. "It was never given. People pulling me lower than the ground, digging my hole. But I've always shown that with resilience, hard work and motivation, I can overcome those moments." He added: "I came to this team for a reason. I was brought in to try and help, which I feel like I did. "I've helped them to diagnose problems in the car and get the cars back on track much faster than if I was not there. Because I was the first one to experience many things that we got on top of later on." Haas is due to replace Ocon with Ferrari junior and F2 championship leader [Rafa Camara](https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/f1-2027-next-rookie-rafael-camara-haas-ferrari/) after being blown away by the Brazilian in a private test. Camara also brings significant commercial backing, although Haas is adamant this is a secondary benefit. **\- Scott Mitchell-Malm** ### The biggest reason Alonso's continuing in F1 Given that his car and engine package is hideously uncompetitive, his disdain for this generation of F1 cars is huge, he's turning 46 next year and surely only has the faintest hope of adding to his 32 grand prix wins and two F1 world championships, it might seem like the only conceivable reasons for Fernando Alonso extending his Aston Martin-Honda deal into 2027 are either extraordinary faith in what would be the biggest miracle of Adrian Newey's career happening or a massive pay cheque. But listening to how he explained his reasoning at Sepang on Thursday, it's also something deeper and almost existential for Alonso. Regardless of how slow his car is, regardless of what this F1 regulations era is making him drive, he still feels quick enough and determined enough - and has concluded he cannot stop while this is still the case. "At the end of the day, I feel fast, I feel motivated, I feel that I'm enjoying what I'm doing, and if I'm sitting at home watching TV, watching races, I will feel that I can do better than them," he said, with a tone you could describe as 'this could be a joke but no, he's definitely not joking'. "That's what I felt in a way when I was away from F1 and I was watching races, and I was thinking, ‘wow, that was not right’. I was always feeling the fire inside of being there and trying to do better, and I still feel it now, and I said, 'until I don’t have that inside, I think it's not time to stop'." Speaking of that time Alonso was away from F1, he again referenced how much his Indianapolis 500, sportscar and Dakar Rally adventures had both refreshed his mind and improved his driving - and threw in a 'watch this space' hint that strongly suggests F1 won't be the only place we see him racing in 2027. "Maybe you have more surprises in the next few weeks," he suggested amid an answer about "the challenges that I tried in the past - and I will keep trying". **\- Matt Beer** ### How Vasseur speculation distracted Ferrari Ferrari drivers Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc have admitted that speculation around the team, including the future of its leader Fred Vasseur, has been a distraction. Between the Azerbaijan and Malaysian races, Ferrari took the unprecedented step of [hastily arranging a media call](https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/ferrari-fred-vasseur-press-call-backing/) to reiterate its confidence in Vasseur after rumours he could be ousted at the end of the year and comments from ex-Red Bull boss Christian Horner that he would be interested in the job. It is hardly the first time Ferrari has been subject to intense media scrutiny, and Vasseur has been in the spotlight himself too. Typically, his drivers throw their support behind him, but this time they also revealed that the rumours have had an adverse impact internally. Hamilton said: “It definitely affects individuals within the team because every weekend they try and show up and do the best job they can. “When your families are messaging you for all the negative things that they're reading, when the people back at the factory are reading all those things even though they're giving it their all, it's almost like sometimes you feel there's nothing you can do right.” Leclerc added: “You don't spend time speaking about the right things and at the factory we need absolutely everything to be pushing in the same direction. “If you have these kinds of rumours you spend maybe a bit more time speaking about these kinds of things which is not nice. “I don't think it does any good, that's for sure.” Hamilton, who joined Ferrari last year, cryptically observed that this team’s structure is “a lot different” to his predecessor Mercedes - where team principal Toto Wolff is also CEO and a stakeholder. This grants him autonomy and stability no other team boss enjoys. “Fred is a fantastic leader, he really is the guy to take this team in the right direction,” said Hamilton. “However, there is a structure that's been there for some time, whether or not that needs looking at moving forward, there are obviously also people above Fred - and it's not about one person.” **\- SMM** ### Honda’s still searching for an Alonso problem Five days on from Fernando Alonso’s retirement in Azerbaijan and Honda still has not zeroed in on a technical issue to explain it. Alonso withdrew from the Baku race after returning to the pits of his own volition. He’d radioed to say “I think we have an engine problem, was eight tenths of a second down” and then “I think we will box at the end of this lap, I'm sorry”. Afterwards, Honda did not see anything on the data to suggest a problem. And curiously, that remains the case now. “After the race we did maintenance and we checked the engine physically,” said Honda’s chief engineer Shintaro Orihara. “Still we haven't found any issue on the data in the maintenance and also we checked all the data in the factory and also trackside, but still, in the data there is no indication of the engine problem.” This clearly raises the possibility that Alonso parked a healthy car. It was proving a miserable race even by Aston Martin and Honda’s 2026 standards. Lance Stroll had retired early and the engine was so poor in Baku that Alonso could not pass and stay ahead of Valtteri Bottas even though the [Cadillac driver was almost two seconds a lap slower](https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/f1-2026-worst-race-drive-cadillac-valtteri-bottas/) than his own team-mate with myriad problems. Whether Alonso got fed up with the situation or not, Aston Martin and Honda will almost certainly never say. Orihara indirectly moved to support Alonso, though, as Honda will continue to search for a problem this weekend. “The driver is the best sensor and Fernando has a lot of experience,” he said. “So even if we \[didn't find\] any issue on the data we will check in this event with the driver's comments.” **\- SMM** ### Sainz still isn't happy with yellow flag penalty Liam Lawson was bemused why team-mate Arvid Lindblad hadn't picked up a penalty in Baku for driving into him on the first safety car restart. But while Lawson obviously isn't going to make a challenge against his own team-mate - and Alpine isn't going to dish out any further consequences to [Franco Colapinto](https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/how-alpine-resolved-franco-colapinto-issue-after-angry-flavio-briatore-reaction/) for wiping out Pierre Gasly - Carlos Sainz has arrived at Sepang with a bone to pick with his Baku penalty. Sainz was slapped with a five-place grid penalty for ignoring yellow flags in Q3, his *third* visit to the stewards that weekend for three different yellow flag incidents. No action was taken over the first incident while the second warranted a reprimand. Sainz still isn't happy with his grid drop - and he'll be bringing it up in the drivers' briefing on Friday at Sepang. "I still believe the yellow flag penalty wasn't explained and wasn't treated correctly, if you look at exactly what I did," Sainz said. "It's a matter to be discussed in the drivers' briefing and I will not discuss it in the media because, yeah, I don't want a big thing to be created about it." Sainz was asked why he's been involved in so many incidents recently, as he was also penalised in Budapest for colliding with Oscar Piastri while a lap down, he collided with his team-mate Alex Albon at Zandvoort and hit both Yuki Tsunoda and Fernando Alonso in Madrid. "The last two weekends I visited the stewards a bit too much for my liking and it's something that we are analysing within the team on what can we do better all together to make sure we don't pay those visits to the stewards as often," Sainz said. "Normally when you're driving in the midfield and you have a less competitive car, for sure, my experience tells me that you visit more the stewards than when you are in a top car and you're only racing two other guys, but it coincides that the last two weekends we've \[made\] a couple of mistakes from our side." **\- JS** ### We haven't seen the best of Audi’s upgrade There were plenty of hints of frustration from Gabriel Bortoleto in his Thursday media session over how the debut of Audi’s major upgrade in Baku was perceived. Bortoleto and Nico Hulkenberg were knocked out in Q1 and neither scored points in a chaotic race, but that doesn’t mean the upgrade didn’t work. Audi’s still being held back by a performance deficit from its first-ever power unit, but he also hinted at other issues that compromised it in Baku. “I want to make clear for everyone, and I tried to make this clear last weekend to the media as well, that I don't think we have doubts on the package,” Bortoleto said. “We know the package works. We have other issues that, unfortunately, sometimes, watching on the TV, we are result-driven, right? We check the position we finish and we're like, ‘oh, this didn't work’, but sometimes the issue is not exactly there. “And don't get me wrong, it's not only \[the\] power unit. We had other things in the race weekend that we didn't spot early enough and we only spotted super late. That put us completely out.” Bortoleto said Audi is “absolutely not” thinking of rolling back to the older spec and pointed to the strong pace he showed in the race compared to Carlos Sainz’s Williams that made it to Q3\. Team-mate Hulkenberg called the upgrade a “clear step forward”. **\- JS** ### Honda's under-the-radar ADUO 2 upgrade The fact that the debut of [Honda’s ADUO 2 upgrade](https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/honda-secretly-introduced-aduo-2-f1-upgrade/) went completely under the radar until Honda revealed it at Sepang probably speaks to just how far back Honda is coming from. An updated turbocharger was fitted to Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin in Madrid and Fernando Alonso’s in Baku, but neither really changed the harsh competitive realities. The ADUO 2 upgrade was a step forward, but Honda’s only able to make incremental steps this year before what it hopes is a much more radical step forward in 2027. As Stroll said in the press conference on Thursday of 2027: “I think the car is going to get a lot better. We have a plan, a good direction. We know what we have to do to put downforce on the car and all that stuff. “I think the big question mark's the engine. We don't know how we're going to be in the beginning of '27, so we'll see.” **\- JS**