Like father, like son: why I’m backing Max Verstappen at Sepang
Pole and victory for Verstappen at the track where his father drove the race of his life, with Checo Pérez as the wet-weather wildcard
My pick for Sunday is Max Verstappen, and not only because of what he did in Baku. Sepang is a circuit where the Verstappen name already means something. Max won the last Formula 1 race here in 2017, the day after he turned 20. Sixteen years earlier, his father drove what many still call the best race of his career on the same piece of tarmac.
From 18th to second in an Arrows
The 2001 Malaysian Grand Prix started in rain and turned into a tropical downpour on lap 3. Jos Verstappen had qualified his Arrows 18th. By the end of the first lap he was sixth, having taken the inside line through the spray while others hesitated. After the safety car he ran second behind David Coulthard, holding off cars that were far quicker on paper.
He finished seventh. As the track dried he had to stop more often than the leaders, and in 2001 only the top six scored points, so the result sheet shows nothing. Anyone who watched it remembers it differently. Like father, like son: what Jos did in the wet that day, Max has done many times since, and usually better.
Baku showed Red Bull is close enough
The bigger reason for my pick is last weekend. In Baku, Verstappen climbed from eighth on the grid to second and finished just 0.196 seconds behind George Russell. He could stay with the Mercedes, but the RB22 did not have quite enough to get past. Our Azerbaijan GP race report has the full story.
That gap is small. If Red Bull learns from Baku and finds one more step this week, and I expect it will, it can threaten Mercedes at Sepang. The long straights suit the car, and Max knows this circuit, which most of the current grid does not.
A big Mercedes upgrade is not an instant advantage
Mercedes will not stand still. Its first significant upgrade since Canada arrives this weekend. “The updates are going to come from Malaysia onwards. And hopefully we’ll make a decent step,” trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said, according to PlanetF1.
Should Red Bull be worried straight away? I don’t think so. A large package has to be understood before it works, and that takes track time. When several new parts arrive at once, it becomes harder to tell which change is doing what. Learning a package this big is a tough job at the best of times. If Friday and Saturday are wet as well, it becomes almost impossible, because laps in the rain tell the engineers very little about how the new parts behave on a dry track. Add a circuit nobody in the team has raced on with these cars, and a forecast full of thunderstorms, and I can see Mercedes needing a weekend or two before the upgrade really pays off.
If it rains, the order changes
The forecast gives a high chance of thunderstorms on all three days, as we wrote in our Sepang guide. If it does rain, I expect Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton to be the drivers who gain the most. Oddly enough, I would add Lance Stroll, who took pole in the wet in Turkey in 2020. He could force something in the Aston Martin, but not a podium unless a lot of cars drop out.
On the other side, I think Oscar Piastri, Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris will find a wet Sepang hard work. None of them has raced here in Formula 1, and the rain has not always been their best friend.
My surprise: Checo Pérez
If it rains, I expect Sergio Pérez to do something unusual in the Cadillac. In Baku I thought the car looked stronger than usual at times, and straight-line speed counts here too. Pérez knows how to handle a wet Sepang: in 2012 he finished second here for Sauber, behind Fernando Alonso, the first podium of his career. Alonso is the other veteran I would not write off in the rain. He has won here three times.
Our prediction: Verstappen, Russell, Hamilton
Verstappen on pole on Saturday and the win on Sunday. George Russell second, keeping Mercedes in the fight despite the new parts still needing time, and Lewis Hamilton third, the driver I expect to gain most if the rain comes. The championship does not change much: Kimi Antonelli leads by 66 points and cannot clinch the title in Malaysia, as our title permutations explain. But a Verstappen win at the track where it all started for him in 2017 would be quite a story.
On Sunday I will be ready at 09:00 to fill the RNT live blog and follow every lap. Will you be watching too?
Who wins at Sepang on Sunday, and does it rain? Give us your top three. Tell us in the comments.
