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Getty Images / The Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia began in wet conditions, though not at the original start time because visibility was considered to be too poor Red Bull's Max Verstappen won his first race of the season in a dramatic rain-affected Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia. Kimi Antonelli finished second in the Mercedes and Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton, who fought his way back to the front after an incorrect tyre choice at the start, completed the podium. Antonelli extended his lead in the championship to 84 points, after team-mate George Russell retired with an engine failure. This weekend, it's the Singapore Grand Prix - Formula 1's original night race. Before the race at Marina Bay, BBC F1 correspondent Andrew Benson answers your latest questions. Do we miss out on exciting wet-weather racing because an overly cautious approach is applied when rain occurs prior to the start of the race? We are watching the best drivers in the world, who have wet tyres, but it seems when it rains prior to the start of a race, the action gets under way too late. - Sam This question comes up a lot whenever there is a wet race, but in this specific situation the delay in starting the race was not caused by any conservatism when it comes to wet running. The cars were sent out on formation laps when the track was still pretty wet on Sunday in Malaysia, but then a bug in the wet-weather engine settings affected a number of cars, including those of Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton on the front row. That meant the formation laps had to be aborted, and a new code written and given to the teams to upload to ensure that did not happen again. It just so happened that in the intervening 25 minutes, there had been no more rain, so the track was pretty dry by the time the race started. Although it has to be said that it took a safety car on lap nine before the drivers who had started on treaded intermediate tyres came in for slicks. On a generic level, there is no fundamental objection in F1 to racing in the wet - most of the drivers enjoy it. But there is now a collective agreement that they will not race when they can't see where they are going. So races are not started when that is the case - as it was at the original start time in Malaysia. But if you cast your mind back to Brazil in 2024, and Verstappen's brilliant drive from 17th on the grid to victory, that was run in wet conditions. After the Bahrain Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton said that, had he started on the intermediate tyres, he could have won the race. Given the race data and his pace, do you think that's a realistic claim had Ferrari put him on the inters at the start? - Michael The truth is that Hamilton - and anyone else - will never know, because there was no direct comparison between his pace and Max Verstappen's in similar conditions. In the first few laps, Hamilton was on slicks and Verstappen on intermediates. When Verstappen switched to slicks, Hamilton's tyres were much older. On the very few laps when Hamilton was in clear air before he caught Isack Hadjar, his pace when generally nowhere near Verstappen's but then his tyres were nine laps older, so you would not expect it to be. And then once he finally passed Hadjar, there were only three laps to go. On one of them, Hamilton was within 0.1secs of Verstappen, on the other two he was 0.5secs and 1.2secs off. But how much were either of them pushing? What we can say is that Verstappen looked imperious all weekend, and it was probably going to be difficult for anyone to beat him - even Hamilton, who, it's worth saying, on Saturday was not sounding that confident of challenging him. But it's just a whole load of ifs, buts and maybes, isn't it? Malaysia, true to form, brought a great race, chaos and weather. It was sold out. Fans have loved it, missed it, drivers liked the track. We know why it dropped off the calendar but what would it take to come back permanently? - Nick Simple answer - money. Malaysia dropped off the calendar because the government there was no longer willing to pay the rights fee, feeling that the expense did not justify the return. It returned only because the Crown Prince of Bahrain was keen to stage his race, F1 was happy to accommodate him, and he managed to strike a deal with the Malaysian government. There's no doubt the race was a success. It had a record crowd of 261,000 this year, more than double the previous largest weekend attendance of 126,690, reflecting F1's growth around the world. If Malaysia was keen on returning to the calendar on a more permanent basis, there is no reason why F1 would not listen to them. But whether that led to a deal would depend on whether one could be struck that satisfied both parties. Mercedes better 'watch out - Verstappen 'imperious' in Bahrain GP win With Red Bull running their own powertrains, what part does Ford play? - John Max Verstappen's victory in Malaysia on Sunday was not only a landmark because it was Red Bull's first of the season - it was also their first as a power-unit manufacturer. Red Bull Powertrains was set up specifically to make an engine for the new 2026 regulations, so the team could be in control of their own destiny following Honda's official withdrawal from F1 at the end of 2021. Ford came on board as a partner early on, and this is much more than simply a badging deal in return for finance/sponsorship money. Team principal Laurent Mekies said on Monday: "Ford has been with us on this project since pretty much the very beginning. "They are a key strategic partner for us on these operations. They are helping us on a number of topics. "Specifically, to give you a few examples, they are manufacturing some of the key elements of the engines. "So, some of these key elements are manufactured in Milton Keynes (at the Red Bull campus), some of these key elements are manufactured at Ford. And they are a 200,000-people company. And therefore, also in terms of engineering, if and when we need specific support on som

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  • 发布时间：2026/10/6 14:47:43