Max Verstappen won the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia on Oct. 6, giving Red Bull-Ford its first victory and keeping him from completing a season without a win for the first time since 2015. The race was held at Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia, the first grand prix there in nine years. It was the 20th race at Sepang and Verstappen’s 72nd career victory.

Before the event, Verstappen had said he wanted to avoid ending the season without a win. To match Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton’s record of 15 consecutive winning seasons, he will need to win in every season through 2030. Schumacher’s streak ran from 1992 to 2006, while Hamilton’s extended from 2007 to 2021.

The victory was also the first for car number three since Daniel Ricciardo, Verstappen’s former team mate, won the Italian Grand Prix for McLaren five years earlier. Fernando Alonso won twice with number three for Ferrari in 2013, and Hamilton took three wins with it for McLaren in 2011. Those seasons came before the FIA introduced career numbers.

The race was named the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia because it replaced the Bahrain event cancelled in April. Bahrain is not hosting a race this year because the event was considered too unsafe given its proximity to the conflict in Iran. The Malaysian circuit is about 6,000 kilometres from Bahrain, a much greater distance than in earlier cases when a race was named for one country but held in another.

San Marino, Luxembourg and Switzerland have previously lent their names to races held in nearby countries: Italy, Germany and France, respectively. Those races were additional events in seasons when the host countries also held their own rounds. Bahrain is not holding a grand prix this year. The Bahrain International Circuit would otherwise have hosted its 23rd race.

Bahrain is expected, in theory, to host the opening round of the 2027 Formula 1 calendar, though that plan remains uncertain. The cancellation led to Sepang hosting the replacement event, which was won by Verstappen, as it was the last time Formula 1 raced there nine years ago. That earlier victory was the second of his career.

Red Bull’s win was the first for a new Formula 1 engine constructor since BMW-powered Brabham won the 1982 Canadian Grand Prix. Under a strict definition that excludes rebadged engines and designs derived from constructors that had already won, Red Bull-Ford counts as a new constructor. Red Bull had committed to building its own power unit before joining with Ford, and its earlier successful Honda-designed units were distinct from the new project.

The 1982 Canadian race had an unusual result: Brabham’s Nelson Piquet won with a BMW engine, while team mate Riccardo Patrese finished second in a Ford-powered Brabham. Other names attached to past winning engines have often reflected branding rather than a new constructor. Red Bull has won with Renault engines labelled TAG Heuer, while Honda- and Porsche-produced engines have won under the Mugen-Honda and TAG-Porsche names.

Ford last contributed to a grand prix victory in 2003, when Giancarlo Fisichella won the Brazilian Grand Prix for Jordan, now Aston Martin, in a car powered by a Ford-Cosworth RS1. Red Bull-Ford’s win therefore marked Ford’s return to the winners’ list after more than two decades. Audi, another manufacturer on the current grid, has yet to win. Ferrari first won in 1951, Mercedes in 1954 and Honda in 1965.

The new power unit also helped end Mercedes’ run of pole positions. Mercedes-powered cars had taken 15 consecutive poles before Verstappen secured the first pole this year for an engine carrying a partial Ford badge. The previous such pole came when Rubens Barrichello put his Stewart on pole for the 1999 French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours.

Verstappen’s victory followed a close contest in Azerbaijan a week earlier, where George Russell earned the eighth win of his career in Baku. Verstappen finished just 0.196 seconds behind Russell, signalling Red Bull’s potential. It was the closest grand prix finish since the 2002 United States Grand Prix, when Michael Schumacher tried to arrange a dead heat with team mate Rubens Barrichello but was beaten to the line by 0.011 seconds.

Fernando Alonso finished eighth at Sepang, Aston Martin’s best result of the season. The four points from the finish left the team five points short of Williams. The result came in conditions Alonso was able to use to his advantage.

The race’s formation lap also drew attention after a software glitch slowed the cars to a crawl. Drivers described losing power during the incident. Other post-race coverage included Mercedes driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli saying the team did not know whether an upgrade had made the car faster or slower, and Hamilton suspecting he could have fought for the win had he not started on slick tyres.

Based on reporting by RaceFans.