Report: A day of data gathering complete in Sepang
Plenty of running under our belts at the first day of the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia
Published
02 OCT 2026
Est. reading time
3 min
After nine years away, Atlassian Williams F1 Team were finally back on track at the Sepang International Circuit, with our first day of running at the 2026 Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia.
It was a traditionally hot and humid afternoon on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, and with no recent data to rely on, there was no time to waste as both Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon hit the track as soon as the green light came on in FP1.
Alex, who is competing closer to his home nation of Thailand than ever before this weekend, completed 22 laps in the opening hour, with his best time of 1:40.321 placing him P17. Carlos clocked up 25 laps of Sepang in FP1, with a 1:40.605 seeing him P20 on the timing tower.
As FP2 approached, so did the threat of rain, with race control forecasting a 90% chance of precipitation during the session. This prompted a flurry of early activity as teams prepared for the possibility of wet-weather running.
A short early stint on both the medium and soft tyres came and went, leaving Carlos in P17 with a 1:39.930 and Alex in P20 following a 1:40.221.
However, the forecast rain never arrived, and all teams then began extended race simulations as the threat of wet weather dissipated. Carlos notched up 31 laps in FP2, with Alex completing one fewer.
With 108 laps under our belts, there’s plenty of data to analyse as we head into qualifying on Saturday ahead of Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia.
Paul Williams - Chief Engineer, Trackside Performance
“Coming into this weekend, we knew it was going to be a challenge and was going to stetch the capabilities of the upgraded package, but we’ve had two clean sessions to gather data and we’re already finding some useful data points for us to dig into further. We knew that Baku was a stronger circuit for us, so it’s important that we can test out the package and the known limitations of the car around a circuit that exposes these weaknesses, ensuring we’re isolating these characteristics and not carrying them into next year.
“The high tyre degradation from the rough track surface and high track temperature will dominate the race. It is also important to achieve a balance front and rear tyre preparation on low fuel. We’ll review the data tonight to prepare heading into FP3 and qualifying tomorrow."
Alex Albon
“This is such a unique track and it's really physical to drive. The car doesn't feel great yet, so we've got a lot of work to do overnight. We made some changes ahead of FP2 to improve our low speed, but we lost a bit of the medium and high speed, which had actually felt better than expected. Hopefully we get some rain or something unpredictable this weekend that we can take advantage of."
Carlos Sainz
“Very difficult Friday for us. Unfortunately, we see that on this track we are back to performing at the level that we were, towards the end of the grid, unless we find something extraordinary going into the weekend. We did some setup changes that helped in FP2, but we continue to struggle at high speed, long corners which also affects our degradation on such a rough tarmac. We’ll keep working on solutions for tomorrow and Sunday."
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