Sepang delivered a revealing qualifying session on a circuit that finally made it possible to read the strengths and weaknesses of the 2026 Formula 1 cars in detail. Max Verstappen produced an outstanding pole position for Red Bull, while Lewis Hamilton secured an excellent front-row start for Ferrari after one of his strongest qualifying laps since joining Maranello. The technical data showed an unusually clear contrast: the Ferrari SF-26 was the strongest car through the corners, while Red Bull recovered an enormous amount of time through efficiency and straight-line speed.
The Malaysian circuit proved particularly demanding on the tyres. Its complete layout, combined with an ageing and relatively low-grip surface, increased sliding, while track temperatures approaching 60°C made keeping the tyres inside an acceptable operating window extremely difficult. That challenge had already emerged during the weekend, with Charles Leclerc highlighting Sepang’s high tyre degradation before qualifying.
Max Verstappen takes pole as Red Bull efficiency stands out
Max Verstappen produced a superb pole position, while Isack Hadjar’s third place confirmed just how competitive Red Bull was over a single lap. The progress made by the Milton Keynes car following its latest updates appears increasingly clear, with the RB22 seemingly recovering a more understandable and consistent personality.
It is not a car perfectly optimised for every corner, nor is it necessarily the strongest in every phase of the lap. However, its behaviour has become more coherent and predictable. That allows the drivers to understand more clearly what to expect from the car and, as a consequence, reduces the likelihood of mistakes.
The real key, however, is aerodynamic efficiency. Red Bull now appears capable of giving away relatively little time across almost every type of corner before producing impressive speed through the acceleration zones. Drag appears extremely low and, under the 2026 regulations, that remains one of the fundamental performance factors.
The data makes the contrast particularly clear. Compared with Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen was slower through virtually all of Sepang’s corners, from the slow Turn 1-2 complex at around 80 km/h to the very fast sequences approached at roughly 250 km/h. Crucially, however, those losses were generally limited to fractions of a tenth. Red Bull then recovered dramatically on the straights, where the RB22 held a clear advantage over Ferrari.
The strong Red Bull Ford power unit, combined with aerodynamics capable of producing very high top speeds and lower energy consumption, gives Max Verstappen a package well suited to the demands of the current regulations. It leaves the Dutch driver to concentrate on one of his traditional strengths: extracting speed while controlling tyre behaviour effectively. His encouraging long-run picture had already emerged on Friday, when Max Verstappen’s race simulation changed the outlook for Ferrari at Sepang.
Ferrari is the benchmark through Sepang’s corners
Ferrari leaves qualifying with Lewis Hamilton on the front row and several highly encouraging technical indications. The data shows clearly that the SF-26 was the strongest car through the corners, both at low speed and high speed, while simultaneously suffering heavily through virtually every significant acceleration zone.
The high-downforce design philosophy clearly helps Ferrari in the corners. At the same time, the amount of available downforce can be adjusted differently between Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton and adapted to the circuit conditions to provide the balance each driver wants. The downside is greater aerodynamic resistance compared with rivals running lower absolute downforce levels.
There is also the power-unit side of the equation, where Ferrari continues to show a significant deficit this season. The combination explains why the SF-26 could repeatedly gain time through the technical sections and then lose much of that advantage again once the cars were accelerating at full speed. More analysis of the car’s evolving strengths and weaknesses can be found in the Ferrari technical analysis section.
Lewis Hamilton delivers his best Ferrari qualifying lap
Lewis Hamilton produced an exceptional qualifying performance to put Ferrari on the front row. His final lap was probably the best complete qualifying lap he has delivered since arriving at Maranello, combining excellent tyre management, precise corner attacks and well-chosen racing lines whenever more than one approach was available.
The seven-time world champion was particularly impressive through the high-speed corners of the middle sector. Even compared directly with Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton’s performance in that section stood out, with the Monegasque losing around four tenths to his teammate there.
Lewis Hamilton was carrying so much speed through the fast corners, relying heavily on the SF-26’s lateral grip, that Ferrari could use more electrical energy through that part of the lap than on previous attempts. The consequence was that he then had to surrender something on the final straight. His line through the last corner was also particularly clean, with the car appearing exceptionally well balanced.
In pure cornering performance, Ferrari was unquestionably the strongest car in qualifying. Its substantial losses came once the SF-26 reached the straights. The result also adds another significant qualifying reference point to the season-long Charles Leclerc vs Lewis Hamilton F1 head-to-head statistics.
Charles Leclerc goes too aggressive at the front
Charles Leclerc followed a slightly different development path from his teammate. The positive feeling provided by the car encouraged him to search for even more front-end response, pushing the SF-26 towards a more aggressive front balance, particularly through the front-wing setting.
The difficulty is that, even at a circuit such as Sepang, maintaining a very stable rear end remains fundamental with the 2026 cars. As qualifying progressed, Charles Leclerc gradually lost confidence in the rear of the Ferrari, and the problem became increasingly apparent during his final lap as the rear tyres progressively overheated.
That issue should be more manageable over the race distance. The interesting question is whether the thermal load during the longer stints will shift more towards the front tyres. If it does, the balance chosen by Charles Leclerc could ultimately provide an advantage over a longer run. The latest Ferrari developments and weekend updates surrounding the Monegasque are also available in the dedicated Charles Leclerc section.
Mercedes is qualifying’s most interesting technical case
Mercedes was perhaps the most interesting technical case of the session. The latest updates have clearly produced additional aerodynamic load, and the W17 has become extremely competitive through high-speed corners. However, that additional load appears to have moved the centre of pressure even further towards the rear of the car.
That may also have been intended to allow Mercedes to exploit progressively higher power levels during the final part of the season. The problem is that the resulting balance has weakened the front end too much, particularly in slow corners, unless the team adopts setup choices that become too extreme to function effectively across the whole lap.
The increased downforce has also brought additional drag, affecting the W17’s energy balance. That is an especially important consideration under the 2026 regulations. The Brackley engineers appeared to struggle with deployment optimisation to such an extent that they even experimented with a different strategy midway through Q2, significantly reducing energy use in the first sector so that more could be deployed later in the lap.
It was therefore no coincidence that neither Kimi Antonelli nor George Russell improved through the opening sector after the middle of Q2. Kimi Antonelli should still be a significant factor in the race, but for the moment the updates appear to have altered the W17’s balance more than they have delivered a clear overall performance step. The main question is how quickly Mercedes can rebuild an effective compromise around the new package.
McLaren loses time under braking
McLaren, by contrast, did not impress over a single qualifying lap. The car did not appear particularly strong in any specific type of corner, while the most obvious weakness emerged under braking.
Looking at the development of the lap-time deficit, the pattern resembled a staircase: almost every major braking zone produced another step of lost time. That is significant because it suggests a broader difficulty in the car’s approach to corner entry rather than one isolated problem at a specific part of the circuit.
It also continues the trend seen in Baku with the new package, which for the moment appears to be making the Woking car more difficult to manage. It remains unclear how important that weakness will become in the race, however, because McLaren had shown much more convincing tyre management during the long runs on the previous days.
The Sepang race could produce a very different picture
Max Verstappen will start from pole position and, considering Friday’s simulations as well, enters the race with a strong underlying picture. However, the Grand Prix could develop very differently from qualifying.
Tyre degradation is extremely high, a two-stop strategy appears almost certain, and the drivers near the front of the grid have several different tyre combinations available. Lewis Hamilton in particular could adopt a very aggressive approach from the start, while Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren may begin to behave very differently as the stints become longer.
That should open the door to numerous strategic possibilities. Sepang has finally produced a qualifying session in which car engineering, driver performance and aerodynamic efficiency could all be examined clearly. After Ferrari demonstrated the SF-26’s cornering potential and Red Bull showed the value of efficiency on the straights, the race promises to provide an equally revealing test.
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