Esteban Ocon released

Max Verstappen took his and Red Bull’s first win of the year with a dominant drive in a dramatic Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia that started amid chaotic and unprecedented scenes. Verstappen led home the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli, who took a giant leap towards his first world title when team-mate George Russell retired from third place with a power unit failure with five laps to go. Antonelli now leads Russell by 84 points with either six or seven races remaining.

Max Verstappen took his and Red Bull’s first pole position of 2026 with an imperious performance in qualifying at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, ahead of Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton. Verstappen, whose last pole and victory was at the season finale in Abu Dhabi in 2026, was 0.298 seconds quicker than Hamilton after topping all three sessions of qualifying. Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar was third fastest but has a five-place grid penalty, which will promote runaway championship leader Kimi Antonelli to third place.

Esteban Ocon is fighting to save his Formula 1 career after the Haas team announced they would split with the Frenchman at the end of the year. Ocon, who won the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix for Alpine, joined Haas in 2025. He has been in F1 since 2016 and has also driven for the Manor and Force India teams. There are no obvious berths for Ocon on the grid in 2027 but he insisted: “This is absolutely not the end of my Formula 1 career.”