Verstappen ends Red Bull's winless run as Russell's title bid suffers cruel Sepang blow

Max Verstappen delivered Red Bull’s first win of the 2026 Formula 1 season at the Malaysian Grand Prix in Sepang, ending a drought that had threatened to become the team’s first winless campaign since 2015. The victory came on a chaotic race day that also exposed the sport’s ongoing power unit reliability concerns.

Red Bull’s turnaround has been swift and striking. Only weeks earlier, Verstappen had publicly criticised the team during the Dutch media session in Baku, saying they had “done a great job messing up” their best chance to win a race in 2026. A week on from coming close in Azerbaijan, he converted that promise into a dominant performance at Sepang.

The Verstappen-Red Bull combination proved to be the benchmark across the entire Malaysian weekend — in Friday’s long runs, in qualifying, and in the race itself. After a chaotic opening phase, Verstappen passed George Russell on intermediates, added an overtake on Andrea Kimi Antonelli at the restart, and then pulled clear of the field. Verstappen was quick to note that not all of the team’s problems have been resolved, but the result represents a remarkable reversal from earlier rounds in China and Japan, where Red Bull were scrapping with Alpine and Haas.

Mercedes arrived at Sepang with a long-awaited aerodynamic upgrade headlined by a redesigned floor, but the package produced inconclusive results. Team principal Toto Wolff attributed the muted showing to Sepang’s unusually rough tarmac and extreme heat, conditions he said produced “things we haven’t seen all year.” Mercedes maintained confidence in the upgrade, with Wolff stating after qualifying: “We still believe that the upgrade works. We just need to understand why not here.”

The weekend’s most dramatic moment belonged to George Russell, whose title challenge suffered a severe setback when his car was struck by a late engine failure in the closing stages — an eerie echo of Lewis Hamilton’s power unit failure at the same circuit in 2016, which proved a decisive blow in his title fight against Nico Rosberg. Ten years on, Russell faces a similarly damaging setback, this time with team-mate Antonelli as the beneficiary.