Max Verstappen achieved his first pole position of the 2026 Formula 1 season following a dominant qualifying session at Sepang, scene of the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia.
The Red Bull driver was fastest in all three qualifying segments after also topping FP1 to take his first pole since the 2025 Abu Dhabi finale with a lap time of one minute, 35.130 seconds at Sepang.
Verstappen will be joined on the front row by Lewis Hamilton on the weekend Malaysia ends its nine-year hiatus from Formula 1 to host the Bahrain Grand Prix due to ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
It comes after the four-time world champion also went fastest in the first runs of Q3, taking the provisional top slot with a time of one minute, 35.250 seconds, 0.308s quicker than teammate Isack Hadjar.
Verstappen was unable to improve in the first two sectors of his second lap, before bouncing back with a purple final sector to go 0.120 seconds faster for his 49th pole in Max’s career.
His final time was 0.298 seconds faster than Hamilton’s one minute, 35.428 seconds for Ferrari, which pushed Hadjar down to third. He will drop five places for an ICE change.
Championship leader Kimi Antonelli endured a struggle by taking fourth, 0.501 seconds off the pace, after entering Q3 already compromised by what happened in Q2.
The Mercedes driver had to push through an extra set of new softs after his first Q2 lap was deleted for track limits at Turn 6, leading to him doing just one lap in the final segment.
Antonelli’s one minute, 35.631 seconds ultimately sees him start third following Hadjar’s penalty, one place above Hamilton’s teammate Charles Leclerc with a time of one minute, 35.666 seconds.
Defending champion Lando Norris was 0.627 seconds off the pace with the sixth-fastest time on a weekend McLaren has struggled for speed, with teammate Oscar Piastri taking seventh-fastest with one minute, 35.762 seconds – though again, both will be promoted one position on the grid.
It was even more of a struggle for Antonelli’s teammate George Russell, who was 0.741 seconds off the pace in eighth, with Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto completing the top ten.
Liam Lawson missed out on Q3 by two tenths to take P11 after being pushed into the Q2 elimination zone by Bortoleto right at the end.
The Racing Bulls driver will duly share the sixth row with Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, who took his best qualifying result of the season, while P13 went to Williams driver Carlos Sainz.
Sainz will be joined on the seventh row by Alonso’s teammate Lance Stroll in the first double Q2 appearance for Aston Martin, who confirmed both drivers for 2027 season.
Franco Colapinto took P15, but the Alpine driver will start the race at the back due to a 15-place grid penalty. Five for his Baku collision and ten for changing his Mercedes power unit.
Arvid Lindblad took P16 for Racing Bulls, as he is also set for a grid drop, one position above Audi’s Nico Hulkenberg who paid the price for starting Q1 on the mediums.
Haas driver Oliver Bearman will join him on the ninth row in P18 ahead of his outgoing teammate Esteban Ocon in P19. His first Q1 exit since Spa.
Alex Albon’s frustrations continued with P20 for Williams ahead of the usual suspects. Valtteri Bottas in P21, three tenths quicker than Cadillac teammate Sergio Perez.
So fantastic to see Max Verstappen taking pole position. The Red Bull look very competitive at this Sepang circuit. To have his former championship rival Lewis Hamilton in P2 will make the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia an exciting race.
Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, qualifying results:
1 Max Verstappen Red Bull-Ford 1:35.130
2 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari 1:35.428
3 Andrea Kimi Antonelli Mercedes 1:35.631
4 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:35.666
5 Lando Norris McLaren-Mercedes 1:35.757
6 Oscar Piastri McLaren-Mercedes 1:35.762
7 George Russell Mercedes 1:35.871
8 Isack Hadjar Red Bull-Ford 1:35.558*
9 Pierre Gasly Alpine-Mercedes 1:37.210
10 Gabriel Bortoleto Audi 1:37.673
11 Liam Lawson Racing Bulls-Ford 1:37.023
12 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin-Honda 1:37.220
13 Carlos Sainz Williams-Mercedes 1:37.527
14 Lance Stroll Aston Martin-Honda 1:37.566
15 Arvid Lindblad Racing Bulls-Ford No time
16 Nico Hulkenberg Audi 1:37.970
17 Oliver Bearman Haas-Ferrari 1:37.980
18 Esteban Ocon Haas-Ferrari 1:38.233
19 Alexander Albon Williams-Mercedes 1:38.600
20 Valtteri Bottas Cadillac-Ferrari 1:38.611
21 Sergio Perez Cadillac-Ferrari 1:38.933
22 Franco Colapinto Alpine-Mercedes No time**
*Five-place grid penalty for power unit changes
**Fifteen-place grid penalty for causing a collision in Baku and power unit changes
Max Verstappen made a long-awaited return to the top of the timesheets in Qualifying, beating Lewis Hamilton and Isack Hadjar to take his first pole position of 2026 for the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia.
After setting the pace through Q1 and Q2, Verstappen looked unbeatable and ultimately opened up an advantage of 0.298s over Hamilton, ending the session with a time of 1m 35.130s.
Red Bull came close to having the two fastest cars on the day before the Ferrari driver displaced Hadjar, who will receive a five-place grid penalty for the race. He also denied Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli a place in the top three during the final stage of Qualifying, with the Italian settling for P4 ahead of Charles Leclerc.
The McLarens finished P6 and P7 with Lando Norris leading Oscar Piastri, while George Russell could only manage P8. Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto ended up P9 and p10, respectively.
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Max Verstappen has hailed his first pole position of the season at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia as “pretty incredible”, with the Dutchman keen to convert the result into a maiden 2026 victory.
Red Bull faced a more challenging start to the campaign than their rivals at the front, leaving the squad in fourth place of the Teams’ Championship with a significant deficit to the top three.
The Milton Keynes-based outfit have enjoyed an upturn in form of late, however, with Verstappen only missing out on a win at last weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix by less than two tenths – and this level of performance looked to have continued as F1 returned to Sepang.
After setting the pace in both Q1 and Q2, Verstappen went fastest again during Q3 to seal pole position with a lap time of 1m 35.130s, putting him nearly three tenths clear of closest challenger Lewis Hamilton.
The four-time World Champion reflected on the journey that Red Bull have been on to this point as he commented after the session: “It’s fantastic.
“We’ve been trying many Grands Prix to get pole, sometimes a bit closer than others, but to finally get it from where we started the season, it’s pretty incredible.”
Pushed on whether this could be where he finally scores his first win of the season, Verstappen responded: “I’m happy with today and for sure I’m going to try to win tomorrow. When you start first, that’s the target.”
Verstappen shared further reflections on the result later and admitted that, despite his strong pace throughout Friday and Saturday, it was still difficult to know whether pole might be on the cards.
“It’s always a little bit hard to tell after practice, not knowing of course what the other people are doing,” he explained. “But I think from Q1 onwards, you see that you are in the running and, yeah, the car has been working really well for me.
“I think in general for us, it’s a proud moment. We had a tough start to the year, and then I think we really put a lot of good stuff on the car and we really understood, I think, our car a lot better, the behaviour of the car.
“And yeah, it’s for sure an amazing moment, I think, for everyone here to get our first pole.
“[Being back in the fight for pole is] what we want as a team also, so for sure very happy with that and I hope of course tomorrow that we can have a strong race.”
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Lewis Hamilton has praised Ferrari for finding “the sweet spot” in Qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, with the Briton set to start on the front row alongside polesitter Max Verstappen.
This weekend marks F1’s first visit to the Sepang International Circuit since 2017, so there were plenty of unknowns heading into the session, especially as the three hours of practice had seen Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes all top the times.
That meant that it was all to play for in Qualifying, but Hamilton didn’t initially seem to be in the mix as he had finished behind Charles Leclerc in the preceding sessions, leaving him pleasantly surprised when his final lap in Q3 earned him P2 on the grid.
He had the slim advantage of having raced in Malaysia before and was elated to produce such a strong result on his return, as he explained: “I think this is the biggest crowd we’ve ever seen here, at least in my time of driving, so I love this energy. A big thank you to Malaysia for welcoming us.
“It’s so hot here, I keep saying it, but that’s made it a massive challenge for the tyres, for the car, for the mechanics in the garage, and I’m really, really thankful to my team.
“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, and we made one last change going into Qualifying and I think we hit the sweet spot.
“To be able to close the gap to two or three tenths to Max, who’s been so quick all weekend, is great and, yeah, I’m so, so grateful.”
Despite Ferrari’s successful efforts to eke out more performance as the weekend progressed, Hamilton noted that any improvements won’t necessarily help them in the Grand Prix, especially as tyre degradation is set to play a significant role.
“I’m much happier with where the car is, but tomorrow is a completely different ballgame,” he said. “Making these tyres last around this track… I mean, they’re overheating from the get-go, so every little bit of wheelspin you have, every little snap you have, depending on the wind, makes a difference of how far you’re going to go.
“But I like to think we’ve got a good balance. Max was really quick on his long runs, so I’ll just try my best to hold on to it tomorrow.”
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