The Inside Line: Sepang showed us that F1 can be great, yet broken

The Inside Line: Sepang showed us that F1 can be great, yet broken The Inside Line: Sepang showed us that F1 can be great, yet broken Sami Awad, News correspondent October 12, 2026 Laila Guzman Griffin Wow, where do I begin? After two race weekends that had me questioning the state of F1, it took a classic track loved by many to bring back the fire. This race in Sepang, Malaysia, was full of chaos, constant strategy calls, drama and real on-track overtakes — this is what we all signed up for!  Funnily enough, David Croft ended the race by saying, “I wouldn’t fancy writing a column about it.” But boy, do I disagree. With all the chaos came way too much to fully recap in this one column, but follow me as I attempt to while also providing some insight into what made this race so good — and worrying for the state of F1. The start time of this race (3 a.m. EST) wasn’t great for U.S. fans, but if any of you were unlucky enough to stay up for the start, you were in for a ride. Lights out wasn’t until roughly 90 minutes after the scheduled time, and the race finished about three and a half hours after the original start time due to a torrential downpour that hit right as the cars were heading to the grid.  Conditions like these are exactly what the full wet tires are built for: each tire can displace 85 liters of water per second, and every driver had a set ready in the garage.   Anyways, because of race control’s allergy to the blue-walled wet tires, we had to wait for the restart. And speaking of allergies, it seems the F1 cars aren’t very waterproof. Half essentially stopped working during the second formation lap behind the safety car. This week, we learned the cars can’t go slowly as the turbos spool down and leave the cars with no power to accelerate due to a cascade of reasons I will omit (the FIA called it an “unprecedented” combination of low engine speed, low grip and wet weather settings if you want the official excuse). For Lewis Hamilton, this meant he had to literally park his car and turn it on and off again to get it back going like a frozen laptop. After drivers got their cars back running again, they dove back into the pits and proceeded to wait out the rain while race control sent an update for the cars to download. By the time this ordeal was over, the track was looking fairly dry down the pit straight, and it seemed the slicks were the correct choice for the restart. This was immediately proven wrong as the inters swallowed up anyone who’d been on dry tires for the restart.  Hamilton, Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris were amongst the notable players on slicks down a minute within a few laps of the restart. Leclerc bailed on the plan and pitted for inters while Hamilton decided what’s done is done and to stay out on the slow slicks waiting for them to come back into play.  By lap nine, the glorious point of crossover arrived as the drier track caused the inters to lose grip while the slicks finally came alive. This is the point strategists sweat and fans lean in to see who will pull the trigger and pit first. But wait, Valtteri Bottas decided now was the perfect time to beach himself in the gravel, causing a safety car to eliminate the problem.  Everyone dove into the pits, except for Hamilton, who stayed out on his original soft tires to gain two positions on track to those who pitted for new slicks. What looked like a done race for those who chose to start on the slicks, a lifeline safety car came in and bunched up the pack, allowing them to have a chance to shoot ahead. With the field reset and ready to race again, Max Verstappen, the grid-top overtaker with 118 overtakes on the season, lurked behind our championship leader Kimi Antonelli. By turn two after the restart, Verstappen had sliced past the young Italian, reclaiming a lead the Mercedes duo had stolen from him at the original start.  From then on, Verstappen drove away four seconds up by lap 21 and never looked back, eventually beating Antonelli to the line by over two seconds for his first win of the season. Behind him, it was hammer time for Hamilton. By the time the second round of stops shuffled the order again, he was already back inside the points, hunting Isack Hadjar, who had a straight-line speed he couldn’t match. A second safety car was called due to a gearbox issue with Alex Albon, but stayed out longer due to George Russell’s Mercedes suffering a suspected power unit issue, a heartbreaking end after running third in the race. Norris couldn’t seem to get his eyes off Russell as he slid into the gravel at turn one; he lost five positions, sending Fernando Alonso into eighth position, which he was able to hold on to for Aston Martin’s best finish of the season. Hamilton was, without question, the best of the weekend. From P2 to 18th due to a bad strategy call, his recovery by intuition and pure race pace was sensational to watch. He was even able to catch Hadjar for third in the closing laps, while Leclerc did the same a lap later for fourth, snapping a five-race podium drought for the team.  The boys in red turned a horror start, with Leclerc being dead last, to a 3-4 finish. This is the type of racing we need: A race where pitting is favored and going all out is the only option. One where most drivers had three pit stops, some with four or five. On the other end of things, the worst of the weekend has to be a wet tire that never left the garage. We had a wet start, a tire literally engineered for a wet track, and nobody was able to use it. Makes you wonder what it’s there for. Decoration? Or perhaps it is just a technical glitch that shows up on the pre-race tire compound overview screen. The real conversation that this race brought was the cars shutting down. We have a sport where the 22 best drivers are gathered, and we give them cars with less and less control. Then we beam them a software update coded (surprisingly fast) and downloaded into their cars like a video game bug needing a fix?  This, to me, seems like gathering the best motorcycle racers then saying, “Okay, here are some bicycles with training wheels.” And let’s not forget what happened last race when Bottas outbraked himself and went off track only to rejoin and slam right into the wall next corner, his car not braking because, brace for this, it didn’t know where it was on track? Give them what they need: V8s and total control.  Sepang gave us a taste of what this sport can be. Singapore’s up next with tight walls, zero margins and no gravel traps to save you from error. Until next week. 0 Like This Story Share on Facebook Share on X Email this Story Print this Story About the Contributor Laila Guzman Griffin, Deputy City Editor Laila Guzman Griffin is a third-year journalism and political science combined major. She has written and designed for The News since 2024, primarily reporting for city and campus. You can follow her on Instagram @laila_s_gg. More to Discover More in Columns Fantasy Football Week 5: One quarter down, three to go The Inside Line: Baku bites back. Azerbaijan Grand Prix recap The Fantasy Forecast Week 3: Maye-Be not The Inside Line: Bienvenido, Madrid. 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