Verstappen won the Bahrain Grand Prix at Sepang from pole by 2.307 s over Antonelli, with Hamilton third. The result looks orderly. The race was not. It began regen behind the Safety Car, went to a staande start on a damp track, was reset by a Safety Car from lap 9 to 12, and was bunched again by a Virtual Safety Car on lap 43 and a Safety Car from lap 45 to 51, leaving four racing rondes to the flag. Russell, Albon and Bottas did not finish.
Race trace, full race: every driver's position, lap by lap.
Three groups, one decision
Sort the field by what it did at the start and de race explains itself. The nine cars that started on intermediates gained 18 places on their grid slots between them, and took first and second. The six that started on slicks and switched to intermediates after a lap or two lost a place overall: they paid for an extra stop and gained nothing for it. The seven that nooit gemonteerd intermediates split hardest. Hamilton finished third, Norris dropped four places, Gasly seven.
Slicks were half a second away
The slick gamble was not wrong. It was early by about one lap. On lap 3 the snelste slick car was 27.8 s slower than the snelste car on intermediates. By lap 8 the gap was 0.53 s, and across each whole group the typical slick car had come from 26.6 s down to 0.48 s behind. One more lap and the slicks would have been the faster tyre.
The Safety Car on lap 9 took that lap away. The cars on intermediates came in and switched to slicks for almost no time loss, and the seven who had gambled took the loss without the payback. Hamilton was the extreme case: second on the grid, 18th within the opening rondes, then 25 places of overtakes to finish third. His first set of softs lasted 31 rondes. His teammate Leclerc made the opposite call, intermediates after lap 3, and finished fourth. Over the rondes they could be compared cleanly, Hamilton was faster 24 times to 10.
How Verstappen won
Verstappen and Antonelli made the same stops on the same rondes: lap 9, lap 33 and rondes 43 to 44. What split them was the middle stint. From lap 10 to lap 33 Verstappen ran softs and Antonelli mediums. On clean rondes Verstappen was faster 32 times out of 37. By lap 40 he was about 11 s clear. The Safety Car cut that to 0.8 s at the restart, and the 2.3 s at the flag was rebuilt in the last four rondes.
Did Friday call it?
We published a Friday long-run analysis before de race, so it is fair to check it. Two parts held. Verstappen, fourth on Friday on the slower medium tyre, had the best race pace of anyone on Sunday, a mediaan of 1:40.095. Antonelli and Leclerc, first and second on Friday, were second and third on race pace.
The part that did not hold was McLaren. On Friday both McLarens lost almost nothing per lap, and we wrote that the slope favoured them over a stint. On Sunday Norris ranked seventh on race pace and Piastri ninth. Our soft-versus-medium model also said a soft stint longer than about 11 rondes would lose to the medium. Verstappen won with a 24-lap soft stint at the heart of his race.
The likely reason is that Sunday's track was not Friday's. No car ran a single lap on intermediates or wets before de race, so every Friday tyre number came from a dry, rubbered-in surface. Rain on race day washes rubber off the track and cools it. We cannot separate that effect in this data, so we treat it as the most likely explanation rather than a finding.
Who moved
Lindblad started last, 22nd, on intermediates, was seventh by lap 10 and finished tenth: 26 places of overtakes for a point. Colapinto came from 21st to 13th. Going the other way, Bortoleto fell from 10th to 18th and Gasly from 9th to 16th.
Russell's retirement was the result with the longest reach. Antonelli leaves Sepang on 320 points, 84 clear of his teammate on 236, with Hamilton third on 214.