Sepang Qualifying: Verstappen Takes His First Pole of the Season, Hamilton Alongside on the Front Row
SEPANG, Malaysia — Max Verstappen scored his and Red Bull's first pole position of the Formula 1 season at Sepang on Saturday, October 3, beating Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton to the top spot by 0.298 seconds for the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia. Verstappen's best lap of 1:35.130 was his 49th career pole, sealing a session he led through all three qualifying stages.
Verstappen's opening Q3 lap of 1:35.250 was already good enough for pole before he improved to 1:35.130 on his final attempt. He was fastest in the first and third sectors, setting the session's best final-sector time of 39.016, while Hamilton was quickest through the middle sector. Hamilton said the Ferrari had struggled with sliding tyres and awkward balance before a single change 'finally hit the sweet spot'. Red Bull's Isack Hadjar qualified third in 1:35.558 but faces a five-place grid penalty for taking a seventh engine, which is set to drop him to eighth and lift championship leader Kimi Antonelli and Charles Leclerc onto the second row.
The top ten were Verstappen, Hamilton, Hadjar, Antonelli (Mercedes, 1:35.631), Leclerc (Ferrari), Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri (McLaren, separated by just 0.005 seconds), George Russell (Mercedes), Pierre Gasly (Alpine) and Gabriel Bortoleto (Audi). Antonelli's session was complicated when his first Q2 lap was deleted for exceeding track limits at Turn 6, forcing him onto an extra set of soft tyres and leaving him a single Q3 attempt while rivals had two.
This was Formula 1's first qualifying session at Sepang since 2017. The race follows on Sunday, October 4, with heat, tyre degradation and the ever-present chance of rain listed by teams as the three big variables.
Sources: Compiled from The Race, Grandprix.com and the McLaren team's qualifying reports of October 3, 2026.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：维斯塔潘驾驶红牛F1赛车。摄影：Jen Ross，CC BY 2.0，取自 Wikimedia Commons
