> ## 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. # Winners and losers from shock Malaysia F1 qualifying - URL: https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/winners-and-losers-from-shock-malaysia-f1-qualifying/ - Published: 2026-10-03T10:49:29.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-03T13:53:51.000Z - Description: Red Bull's shock pole claimed the headlines, so allow us to bring you some of the other stories of qualifying with our winners and losers - Author: The Race Team - Tags: Formula 1, #bahrain-grand-prix, #max-verstappen, #lewis-hamilton, #gabriel-bortoleto, #valtteri-bottas, #alex-albon, #mercedes, #haas, #nico-hulkenberg, #secondary_feature_1 Red Bull catapulting to the top of the order for its first pole of the year, the first for a non-Mercedes powered car in 2026, grabbed the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia headlines. And that makes our winners and losers feature even more of a goldmine, as we assess the best and worst performances of the day. ### Loser: Mercedes (4th & 8th) This was Mercedes’ worst qualifying performance since Hungary, where Kimi Antonelli was fourth and George Russell seventh, and the temptation is to conclude the substantial upgrade Mercedes brought to Malaysia isn’t working. Team boss Toto Wolff told Sky Sports F1 that Mercedes "still believe the upgrade works" but will need to comb through the data after discovering the car "looks like we are very draggy". "It’s the first time that we're losing a lot of time on the straights, to especially Max," Wolff added. “And then through the low speed, Turn 2, we are not able to turn the car. There's just too much understeer. So overall things we haven't seen all year." Both Russell and Antonelli pointed to the "abrasiveness of the tarmac" (Russell’s words) making Sepang an outlier circuit, with Antonelli suggesting "the whole year, whenever we went on tracks like this with very open tarmac, we've always struggled. "So is it because of the tarmac and because it's so hot out there? Or is it because maybe we're missing something with the new package?" Mercedes is a bit stuck right now, because it definitely feels the upgrade has improved the car in high-speed corners, as it was designed to do, but that seems to have come at the cost of its previous strengths through low-speed corners and in straight-line efficiency. And now the cars are in parc ferme after qualifying, there’s no going back unless you want to start from the pitlane, and in any case the old parts were reaching the end of their natural life, so under the cost cap Mercedes can't afford to revert and needs to find a way to make this work. "All the numbers say it's an improvement," said Russell. "But obviously it's a sport that we need to follow the laptimes and not what the numbers say. "The numbers look absolutely fine and in line with expectations, but the result wasn’t." **\- Ben Anderson** ### Winner: Max Verstappen (1st) Nine years on, Max Verstappen and Red Bull are still the quickest combination around Sepang and who’d bet against him in the race? Having not been on pole position all season, Verstappen looked relatively comfortable throughout qualifying, topping each session and taking pole with a three-tenth margin. Team-mate Isack Hadjar completed a strong day for Red Bull (even if he’ll go back five places on the grid), but Verstappen’s four-tenth margin over him shows the difference the four-time world champion made. **\- Josh Suttill** ### Winner: Aston Martin (12th & 14th) Easily Aston Martin-Honda’s best performance of the season so far, combining the lighter B-spec car first introduced in Hungary with Honda’s ADUO 2 upgraded engine - which doesn’t seem to be a giant leap but is at least not penalising the car to quite the extent Honda’s engine has been doing so far in 2026. Alonso was just over four tenths away from making Q3, while Lance Stroll - who felt the car "clicked for me during the second push lap in Q1 and came together much better" - was only two places and 0.346s further back, and might have done better but for some scruffy driving in Q2. In a piece of signature Alonso hyperbole, he called it a "miracle that we are fighting with cars that are much faster than us". "No doubts our best weekend in terms of car performance," and "definitely a step forward in terms of competitiveness," Alonso also said. "The car is exactly the same as the last four rounds, since Budapest, so it’s just telling us that it depends on the circuit layout and the amount of straights we have, we can be more or less competitive." Although it should be said he expects to go backwards not forwards on Sunday, owing to the aforementioned "miracle" and "some fast cars starting behind us with some penalties as well that tomorrow they will come strong". **\- BA** ### Winner: Lewis Hamilton (2nd) Ferrari’s qualifying execution has been a consistent bugbear for Lewis Hamilton for much of his time at the team, but Hamilton called Ferrari's Malaysia timing "perfect". He said he was surprised to be on the front row for the first time since Barcelona, having been looking at the third row pre-qualifying. "These cars are so sensitive; you make the smallest change and it’s ridiculous the difference it can make from one run, one session to the other," Hamilton said. "One click of front wing or one millimetre ride height, a quarter degree of camber, 0.1 of toe, something like that. These little things make such a big difference to balance, it’s literally a moving target that you’re trying to work around, with set-up and also the controls we have. "Even understanding throttle application, if you get to full throttle too early here, your stair \[ramp down\] starts early and you lose time down the straights. These things that I don’t think many of us like. "Mastering all of that together is a massive challenge. We’re so on the edge because we’re losing so much on the straights." **\- JS** ### Winner: Gabriel Bortoleto (10th) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/dd/af/ddafbd99-2ccd-468c-b622-4b3cccf80b49/content/images/2026/10/XPB_1441662_HiRes.jpg) His Audi team-mate went out in Q1 and he made it all the way through to Q3, so Gabriel Bortoleto can sleep well knowing he had a good day. The Audi squad looked like it went backwards in Baku, despite its massive upgrade package, but thanks to soul-searching and "long nights" at the factory, it appears to be unlocking some of that new performance. That, plus what Bortoleto described as "when you do very good laps and the car is in a good window and you feel comfortable, you can sometimes do something great". Self-proclaimed "greatness" can be jarring, but its hard to deny Bortoleto a dose of that today. **\- Jack Benyon** ### Winner: Valtteri Bottas (21st) Valtteri Bottas looked "pretty slow" in Baku by his own admission, so qualifying over three tenths ahead of Cadillac team-mate Sergio Perez in Malaysia was the perfect response. He has the upgraded Ferrari ADUO 2 engine for the first time this weekend, something Perez elected not to run, having used it in Baku, to save the mileage on it for a different track. "There is a difference. It's not huge difference, but there is a difference, so it's nice to have it," Bottas said of the engine upgrade. Asked by The Race if he felt like he was back on form after Baku, Bottas said: "Something was definitely off last weekend, we were so far off, but we changed many things and now the car is again back to normal. "No issues at all this weekend, so being able to just get to the rhythm, do the set-up work and go from there." **\- JS** ### Loser: Alex Albon (20th) Two races with Williams' new upgrade, twice beaten by his team-mate. This wasn't a good day for Alex Albon. While Carlos Sainz said he did better laps than the Baku ones that got him into Q3 and perhaps his best this year, Albon was another victim of running wide at the Turn 14 right-hander that leads onto the back straight. But Albon reckons the team has been "struggling with parts" - quality rather than quantity in this case - and a change for qualifying "made it worse". So perhaps that explains the deficit between the pair. "If we need to do a pitlane start tomorrow \[to change the parts\], so be it," he added. **\- JB** ### Loser: Haas (18th and 19th) The worst qualifying result of Haas’s 2026 F1 season comes right off the back of the team’s first double points finish of the year. Esteban Ocon felt he was sent out too early in Q1, so he missed the best of the track conditions, while Ollie Bearman says he was compromised by messy practice sessions, including the wrong set-up being applied to his car. "For me, the issue has been an all-weekend long one," Bearman said. “We started out in FP1, it was okay, but then in FP2 we had a problem with the car set-up. "Basically, the set-up that we intended to put on the car was not the set-up that ended up on the car. "The car ended up in a state that we would never intend to ever run a race car, not even on an oval. "The only time I've actually had a good car and had a good feeling was in that final \[qualifying\] run. "I didn't get everything out of the tyre because it was the first time I had a decent balance all weekend." **\- JS** ### Loser: Nico Hulkenberg (17th) A big moment at Turn 14 undid Nico Hulkenberg's chances of going any further by 0.087s, out in Q1. That might have been dismissed as normal looking at the team's performance in Baku, but we already know Bortoleto put the car in Q3, so this can only go down as an error that creates an embarrassing qualifying deficit to the only person you can really compare Hulkenberg to, his team-mate. "Disappointed with myself, didn't put the lap together," was his take. Hulkenberg has a wily way of overturning these set-backs on race day, so don't count him out. Especially as Bortoleto has proven Audi's lack of straight-line speed - which won't improve much for the remainder of the season - won't be the thing that holds Audi back from fighting through the midfield this weekend. **\- JB**