Max Verstappen secured his first pole position of the 2026 FIA Formula One World Championship at the Sepang International Circuit, posting a 1:35.130 to claim the 49th pole of his career ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia. Lewis Hamilton qualified second for Ferrari, 0.298 seconds adrift, giving the Scuderia a front-row start for Sunday’s race.
Red Bull team-mate Isack Hadjar qualified third with a 1:35.558 but will drop to eighth on the starting grid after receiving a five-place penalty for an Internal Combustion Engine change. That penalty promotes championship leader Kimi Antonelli to third on the grid, with Charles Leclerc fourth for Ferrari.
Verstappen had topped all three practice sessions before carrying that pace into qualifying. His decisive final lap in Q3 came after he was unable to improve in the first two sectors, but a strong final sector delivered a further 0.120 seconds of improvement over his provisional pole time of 1:35.250. It is his first pole position since the 2025 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Hamilton also improved on his final run to lock in second with a 1:35.428, having demonstrated the competitiveness of the Medium compound tyre in the earlier segments alongside Leclerc. Antonelli, who set the early Q1 benchmark of 1:37.041, was hampered in Q2 after having a lap deleted for exceeding track limits at Turn 6, forcing him onto a fresh set of Soft tyres and limiting his available compounds for Q3. His best effort of 1:35.631 placed him fourth on the timesheets.
Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri completed the top seven for McLaren, separated by just 0.005 seconds — 1:35.757 to 1:35.762 respectively. George Russell was eighth in the second Mercedes, 0.741 seconds off pole. Pierre Gasly qualified ninth for Alpine and Gabriel Bortoleto rounded out the top 10 for Audi.
Liam Lawson was eliminated at the Q2 stage by 0.209 seconds after Bortoleto produced a late improvement, ending the New Zealander’s hopes of a Q3 appearance. Fernando Alonso, Carlos Sainz, Lance Stroll, Franco Colapinto, and Arvid Lindblad also failed to advance from Q2.
Colapinto faces a combined 25-place grid penalty — 15 places for causing a collision in Baku and a further 10 for a power unit change — while Lindblad will also start from the back of the grid following his own penalty. At the bottom of the Q1 order, Nico Hulkenberg was eliminated in 17th for Audi, ahead of Haas drivers Oliver Bearman and Esteban Ocon, with Alex Albon and the Cadillac pair of Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez completing the field.