Lewis Hamilton lined up on the front row at Sepang on Sunday with, in his own words, “a chance potentially to try and fight Max for the win”. One lap in, he was 18th.

Ferrari had sent him and Charles Leclerc out on soft slicks. Max Verstappen and most of the field were on intermediates. Standing water did the rest.

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur confirmed afterwards that the key moment of Hamilton’s recovery, the call to stay out when the safety car came and others pitted, was Hamilton’s, not the pit wall’s.

“We let him have the choice. At the end, in this situation, they are in the car,” Vasseur said.

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“When we are telling him that we are ready, it’s just to tell him that he can pit if he thinks that it’s the right call.”

‘My heart sank’

Hamilton had already argued against going out on slicks on the pre-race laps to the grid.

“I went into the pit lane, I looked at the ground, I was like, ‘it’s still wet’… it’s still wet,” he told Sky Sports.

The moment he looked across the grid, he knew.

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“When we were at the end of the pit lane and these two took off their blankets and they’re on inters, we were in trouble,” Hamilton said.

“It’s a mixed emotion… my heart sank, and I was like, ‘that’s the race over’.”

A long stint on the softs

Vasseur credited Hamilton’s management of a stint most drivers would have abandoned.

“He did a very good race, very smooth strategy. He was able to do a mega long stint with a very good tyre management with the soft.”

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Hamilton crossed the line 4.919 seconds behind Verstappen, with Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli splitting them in second. Leclerc recovered to fourth.

Verstappen led from pole and pulled clear once the track dried. The win was Red Bull’s first of 2026 and the first for the new Red Bull Ford Powertrains partnership.

Asked how he and the strategists would avoid a repeat of the opening-tyre call, Hamilton kept it short.

“Yeah, not going to go to the casino with the guys.”

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