Winners and losers from the 2026 Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia Qualifying

SEPANG – Max Verstappen is the obvious big winner as he’s taken his first pole position of F1 2026 in qualifying at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Here is PlanetF1.com’s full list of winners and losers from the 2026 Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia qualifying.

Winners and losers from the 2026 Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia qualifying

Winner: Max Verstappen

It’s been quite a while since Max Verstappen’s most recent pole position, taken at the dramatic showdown in Abu Dhabi at the end of last year, but there was nothing remotely fortuitous or circumstantial about his storming to pole at the Sepang International Circuit.

There have been signs of upward momentum from the RB22 all year, with every upgrade step adding something extra to the package, and this has proven to be the case once again following the new floor geometry and sidepods rolled out in Baku.

Able to stalk George Russell without mercy in the closing stages in Baku, there was a sense of ‘what if?’ about the opportunity, having had his qualifying compromised by a power unit issue, even at a track upon which outright power plays a big part.

In Malaysia, that demand for sheer grunt is less prevalent and, right from the off, Red Bull has looked in decent position, and Verstappen, as he so often does, delivered the goods when it mattered to take pole by three tenths of a second.

“It’s always very hard to say why it is, but I think for us anyway, the last few races we have probably understood the car a little bit better, but also the upgrades have pushed some of the weaknesses out of the car,” Verstappen said of the performance.

“There are, of course, always things that you would still like, but we have been adding bits to the car and they have worked. It’s simple as that.

“When they work, you gain lap time, you have a better overall balance in the car. So with tyres that are very sensitive to balance, that gives you also more lap time.

“And then on a track probably where it’s all very hot and you want a stable balance or connected balance, then that’s very important.

“And that’s, I think, what we have found a little bit more over the last weekends.”

As for Hadjar, his impressive performance continued by way of third place, and felt second had just evaded him after feeling he hadn’t quite the car setup into its full potential.

Despite this, he was satisfied with the result, pragmatic in his disappointment at taking his five-place grid drop at a circuit where Red Bull is clearly strong.

“I definitely feel like I jumped in a car that’s way better than when I left it in Budapest,” he said.

“Definitely, when you step out actually for three races and you come back, you actually notice a bigger difference. The last two weekends have been surprising.

“Even though I was following from close, even though I was on the bench, I feel like I’m quite surprised driving this car right now.

“I still believe there are things that need major improvements and still the car is performing okay, so it’s only good news.

“But, to be fair, I’m actually surprised it’s performing that well on a tarmac that has such low grip.

“Usually it doesn’t really suit our car, but apparently it does. So it’s good that it works in Baku and Sepang, two completely different tracks. I think it’s good news.”

Aside from its improved balance, Red Bull feels it’s got an area of advantage over its immediate rivals: the tyres on the RB22 simply seem to be staying alive longer through the lap.

In quali conditions, it reaped the reward: will this advantage maintain itself through a high-deg race?

Loser: Mercedes

With Kimi Antonelli only fourth (starting third), half a second off the pace, and George Russell back in eighth, starting seventh, it was a tough day at the office for Brackley as its new upgrade package, for now, appears to have sapped some of the strengths of the W17.

The long-awaited big update package, the first significant change to the car since Canada, hasn’t been an easy one to hit the ground running with, and team boss Toto Wolff revealed that, from Friday, unusual behaviour has been visible in the data.

“It looks like we are very draggy because it’s the first time that we’re losing a lot of time on the straights, to especially Max,” he said.

“And then through the low speed, Turn 2, we are not able to turn the car. There is just too much understeer. So overall, things we haven’t seen all year.”

It’s too late for Mercedes to be able to make any changes to unlock more performance, with a reversion to a more understood spec not possible now without a breach of parc ferme and a consequential starting from the pitlane.

With the team clearly off the boil and in need of more time to refine the new package, the Malaysian race may well be a case of damage limitation.

“There’s a lot of learning that we need to make about this package,” Antonelli said.

“I think the track doesn’t help as well because the tarmac is so rough and it’s so hot that the tyres are out of the windows after two corners. So we’re just sliding around, and it’s making our life difficult to understand this package.”

Asked by PlanetF1.com to expand upon the unusual behaviours of the car, the championship leader said, “The window of the the way the car operates is different.

“So I think we’re trying to understand in which window the car performance is best in the high speed corner and low-speed corner, I think our high-speed performance has been very strong this weekend. We were very quick in the high-speed, but in the low-speed was where we lacked.”

Russell pointed to the uniqueness of the tarmac as potentially a factor, but said the upgrade is producing some unusual quandaries for Mercedes to resolve, given the lack of back-to-back comparison with the old spec.

“All the numbers say it’s an improvement,” he said, “but obviously, in this sport, we need to follow the lap times and not what the numbers say.”

Despite the result, it’s still a good day for Antonelli, whose third place grid slot gives him a prime opportunity to pull away some more from his nearest rival in Russell.

Winner: Lewis Hamilton

Hamilton felt he’d been up against it in trying to find a good rhythm through practice, but pointed to how a late change made all the difference in qualifying.

“We’ve made so many changes through all these practice sessions and because the cars are sliding, these tyres are overheating, it was really, really hard to find a good balance,” he said.

“And we made one last change going into qualifying and I think we hit the sweet spot. So, to be able to close the gap to two or three tenths to Max, who’s been so quick all weekend, is great. I’m so, so grateful.”

Revealing that he’d felt Ferrari was eyeing fifth and sixth on the grid, Hamilton elucidated on the difficulty of finding that sweet spot.

“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,” he said.

“One click of front wing, or one millimetre ride height, a quarter of a degree of camber, or 0.1 of toe, or something like that.

“These little things make such a big difference to balance, and it’s literally a moving target that you’re trying to work around with setup and then also controls that we have. Even then, understanding throttle application.

“If you get to full throttle too early, you [inaudible] and you lose time down the straight. These kind of things that I don’t think many of us like, but mastering all that together is a massive challenge and obviously makes it even harder for us because I think we’re so on the edge, because we are losing so much on the straights.

“So, I’m just hoping that we continue to work hard. If we get to a point where we have base power with these guys [Red Bull], I think we’re going to have an even better fight in future.

“The only place we lose is down the straights to them. I think we’re losing three or four tenths on the straights to them, which we know of, and so we just work as hard as we can to try and maximise in the corners.

“But I think we were able to do that today. So, this is really down to the mechanics and the engineers.

“We all did a really great job together, and then also execution was really on point. So, if we could keep this up, hopefully we can get better results moving forwards.”

More from the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia

Hidden Lando Norris issue revealed as McLaren deficit uncovered

Untelevised Carlos Sainz footage emerges after Bahrain GP near miss

Winner: Aston Martin

Take the power unit deficit largely out of the equation, and, all of a sudden, Aston Martin doesn’t look so bad.

Both Alonso and Stroll made it into Q2 without much fuss, and the Spaniard went on to hail a “definite step forward in competitiveness” as he spoke about the team’s “best weekend in terms of car performance.”

“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,” he said.

Alas, the power unit is part of the equation, and that means these performances remain sporadic, at best.

“Yeah, [we have] performance to be at the front of the midfield for sure,” Stroll told PlanetF1.com when asked if the performance on display was vindication of where the package is at when the biggest weakness is less compromising.

“We know that we know some tracks we’re losing a second, some tracks were losing two seconds. So we know where where we are.”

Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists.

You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!

Read next: Where did Mercedes’ vanish during Bahrain GP in Malaysia qualifying?