🇲🇾 Report: Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia 2026

A chaotic race in the rain with good news on dry pace

Published

06 Oct 2026

Est. reading time

3 min

🇲🇾 Bahrain in Malaysia delivered exactly what it promised: chaos, rain, Safety Cars and a completely unpredictable race

Franco arrived at Sepang with a combined 15-place grid penalty, leaving him to start from P21. In those circumstances, the result matters less than the progress. And the progress was there.

Race results

🥇 P1: Max Verstappen (Red Bull) 🥈 P2: Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) 🥉 P3: Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) 🇦🇷 Franco Colapinto: P13 🇫🇷 Pierre Gasly: P16

📸 Best photos from the weekend

What the data showed: Franco's progression at Sepang

On a track nobody knew with the 2026 car, the numbers tell the real story of the weekend.

FP1: Speed trap P8 at 324 km/h. Other sectors: P12, P19 and P16. Overall lap P19.

FP2: The toughest session in terms of data. Franco was one of the last to fit soft tyres and his laps came late in the session. P22 in all three sectors, but P3 at the finish line at 288 km/h shows the straight-line speed was there.

FP3: The biggest leap of the weekend. Speed trap P3 at 328 km/h. Sectors: P10, P13 and P12. Overall lap P9 with a 1:37.920. A consistent improvement across all three sectors that confirmed Franco and the team had found the right direction.

Qualifying: With the penalties already factored in, Franco didn't set a representative time in Q2. Even so, the data showed real pace: P1 in sector 1 speed at 298 km/h and P7 in the speed trap at 320 km/h. Sectors: P11, P17 and P12.

Race: The best number of the weekend came on race day: P1 in the speed trap at 347 km/h, the fastest of the entire field. Timed sectors: P13, P19 and P17, with a fastest lap of 1:40.988 on lap 33 on hards. Sector 2 was consistently the most difficult throughout the weekend, giving the team a clear area to work on for Singapore and the races ahead.

🏁 The race

Franco started from P21 on soft tyres, betting on a track that had already dried slightly to make up ground. The logic was clear: in a chaotic wet race, a different strategy can pay off enormously.

But the track didn't dry as quickly as the team expected. "It surprised me that the track took so long to dry. With the high ambient temperatures and rough track surface, we thought the conditions would come to us quickly, but it didn't happen," Franco explained.

After pitting on lap 9 to switch to mediums, Franco made three stops in total: mediums on lap 9, hards on lap 31 and mediums again on lap 42. He finished P13, making up eight positions from his starting point.

The most important takeaway from the day was the dry pace, which was very strong according to both Franco and Briatore. A positive sign heading into the remaining races of the season.

What they said

Franco: "It was a shame how the race played out. In hindsight it wasn't the right decision, but after that we did the best we could to recover. The pace on dry tyres was very good and that's an encouraging sign for the races ahead."

Briatore: "The dry pace looked promising and there are still plenty of races left to chase down fifth place in the championship, which is still achievable."

🩵 On to another race week

Singapore arrives this Sunday and the FranClub43 will be there with everything.

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