Antonelli still holds a solid lead over Russell despite his Baku win
Mercedes
Formula 1 hasn’t raced at Sepang since Max Verstappen won there in 2017, and it returns this weekend under an unlikely name.
The Bahrain Grand Prix is being held in Malaysia, another sign of a calendar reshaped by the conflict in the Middle East. It’s a new circuit for 12 of the 22 drivers, and the forecast promises heat, humidity and thunderstorms.
There are eight rounds to go in the championship, with Kimi Antonelli 66 points clear after his lead was cut in Baku.
George Russell took a dominant win at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix while Antonelli, by his own admission, had the worst weekend of his season. Mercedes now heads to a track where neither driver has experience and where the new-generation cars have yet to be tested in the wet.
Antonelli’s lead is safe for now. Sepang will show whether that’s likely to change before the end of the year.
Despite enduring what he labelled as his worst weekend of the year in Baku, Kimi Antonelli still holds a 66-point championship lead with, on paper, eight rounds remaining, which is a commanding cushion after a summer in which he made the title fight look like a procession.
Baku has somewhat shifted the conversation, though.
Another win at Sepang could change the title narrative for Russell
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George Russell took a dominant pole, led from lights to flag and set the fastest lap for the first Grand Slam of his career, being faster than Antonelli at every stage of the weekend. It emphatically ended Antonelli’s five-race run of finishing ahead of his team-mate, and made a dent in his 81-point advantage.
Antonelli lost much of practice to a technical issue, crashed in the first part of qualifying and started from 16th, then recovered to finish fifth.
He was honest afterwards, admitting he had driven “like my grandmother” and saying that he lacked the confidence to push at full commitment.
It added up to being a compromised weekend rather than one where the championship leader had underperformed.
At the moment, Baku is seen as just an aberration in what has been otherwise a remarkable season. Sepang is where we find out whether that becomes a downward trajectory for Antonelli.
Russell began the year as the favourite and won the opener in Australia, but by the Dutch Grand Prix, Mercedes was instructing him to move aside for his less experienced team-mate.
Since the summer break, though, Russell says he has made progress and feels more like himself again, and Baku was the first result to back that up.
One victory dents the lead. A second in a row could start to dent the narrative, and Sepang adds a wildcard – not just in the shape of an unknown circuit for both drivers, who weren’t even on the grid when the venue last hosted an F1 race.
This weekend, Mercedes is ending its development pause with an upgrade package; its first genuine update since Canada.
Mercedes is finally introducing an upgrade at Sepang
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An updated car, an unfamiliar track and unsettled weather mean the driver who adapts fastest may end up with an edge that Baku’s form couldn’t really predict.
So does any of this make Antonelli nervous? Russell insists it should, saying there is much less pressure on him than on his team-mate, although that is only F1’s common mind games.
Russell is in the ‘comfortable’ position of having virtually conceded defeat which shifted the pressure to his younger team-mate.
He needs to average a little over eight points per round to close the gap, so Sepang is where he can either show it is doable, or confirm that Baku was just a small bump on the road to Antonelli’s first F1 title.
Twelve of the 22 drivers on the grid have never raced a Formula 1 car at Sepang before, and the group includes some of the biggest names: both Mercedes drivers, both McLaren drivers and Ferrari‘s Charles Leclerc.
They are joined by Isack Hadjar, Liam Lawson, Arvid Lindblad, Franco Colapinto, Ollie Bearman, Gabriel Bortoleto and Alex Albon.
Leclerc has at least sampled the place, driving first practice for Sauber in 2017. He also raced there in GP3 a yer earlier where he took pole but was beaten to the win by Albon.
Lawson proved a sensation in Sepang in the final round of the 2018 F3 Asian Championship – his series debut. He won all three races from pole and set the fastest lap in each.
Of those who have raced in a Malaysian Grand Prix, Max Verstappen won the last race in 2017, and Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton are both past winners. Their experience comes from very different cars and tyres, but it gives them a mental map that the rest of the field lacks.
Sepang is set to be wet at some point during the weekend
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While drivers have been testing in simulators, Pirelli says no team has relevant references for the current generation of cars at Sepang; the asphalt has not been resurfaced since 2017.
Tyre choice rests largely on simulation too, and Pirelli has responded with the C2, C3 and C4 compounds, one step harder than the range used in Baku.
Friday is therefore the first real check for drivers, teams and Pirelli alike, and the drivers who learn quickest get a genuine head start.
And they may have to do all of it in the wet.
The new generation of cars has not yet raced on wet-weather tyres yet. The closest the season came was Canada, where McLaren’s gamble on intermediates turned out to be the wrong call. So the first serious rain will bring unfamiliar handling on a circuit new to most.
Then there is the heat. Air temperatures are expected to reach 32-33C, but the humidity pushes the heat index to somewhere between 40C and 43C.
The race starts at 3pm local time, the hottest part of the day. The intense heat, high humidity and sudden downpours will test both the machinery and the men onboard.
The 1999 Malaysian Grand Prix is remembered for Ferrari’s dominant 1–2, Michael Schumacher’s emotional return from a broken leg and, above all, for the post-race bargeboard controversy that, for a moment, made Mika Häkkinen world champion with one round to go.
Irvine won at Sepang to keep his title chances alive
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The race, only the second Formula 1 event at the new Sepang circuit, ended with Eddie Irvine ahead of Schumacher, who had slowed down on purpose to allow his team-mate to win the race.
The result put Irvine at the head of the standings, four points ahead of Häkkinen.
On paper, the title fight would be decided at Suzuka the following week. Post-race scrutineering, however, changed everything.
Technical delegates measured the bargeboards on both Ferraris and found them to be 1mm wider than the maximum permitted dimension. Under the regulations, that was enough for disqualification.
The stewards excluded Irvine and Schumacher from the results, promoting Häkkinen to the win and David Coulthard to second.
Suddenly, Häkkinen was champion by four points, and McLaren had clinched the constructors’ title by a single point.
“I can’t believe they are taking the points and the leadership of the world championship away from me for something like that,” said Irvine. “The punishment is too harsh compared to the crime. It seems impossible to lose a world championship over this.”
The decision sent shockwaves through the paddock. Ferrari immediately announced it would appeal, arguing that the measuring equipment was not precise enough to justify such a severe penalty.
The case went to the FIA International Court of Appeal, which heard arguments in Paris six days later.
Ferrari’s technical team demonstrated that the gauges used at Sepang had tolerances that made a definitive 1mm call impossible. The court agreed, ruling that the benefit of the doubt should go to the competitor when the measuring process itself was not sufficiently accurate.
On 22 October 1999, the FIA reinstated Ferrari’s 1–2 finish. Irvine was once again the winner, Schumacher second, and the championships were back in play.
Häkkinen would eventually secure the drivers’ title at Suzuka a few days later, by two points.
