The Grand Prix in Exile: Sepang Set to Answer F1’s Bahrain Problem

Formula 1 is poised to confirm one of the most unusual arrangements in its modern history: the Bahrain Grand Prix, cancelled in March as war engulfed the Gulf, will be staged more than 3,000 miles from home — at Malaysia’s Sepang International Circuit — on the first weekend of October. An announcement is expected imminently.

A Grand Prix without a homeland is about to find a foster one. Malaysia is set to host a Formula 1 race on the weekend of October 2-4, standing in for the Bahrain Grand Prix — and, in a twist befitting this strangest of seasons, the event is expected to keep the Bahrain name even as it unfolds on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim told reporters on Saturday that an announcement would come on Sunday, and sources at ESPN and Sky Sports indicate the deal is done in all but signature. Nine years after Sepang waved Formula 1 goodbye, the sport is coming back — carrying someone else’s race in its luggage.

How Formula 1 got here

The roots of this story lie in March, when the war between the US-Israeli alliance and Iran forced the cancellation of the season’s fourth and fifth rounds in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, cutting the calendar from 24 races to 22. For months, the hope was that a June ceasefire would allow Bahrain to be salvaged and slotted into the one free weekend of the autumn: the gap between Azerbaijan (September 24-26) and Singapore (October 9-11).

That hope died slowly, then all at once. With hostilities flaring again in recent weeks — missile strikes out of Iran, and a US military base near Manama coming under regular attack — committing to a race at Sakhir became untenable. The final domino is expected to fall via the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council, whose decision this weekend on the Middle Eastern rounds of the World Endurance Championship is set to open the door for F1 to formally abandon its own Bahrain rescue plan. F1 wanted the matter settled before the summer shutdown; it will get its wish.

Why Sepang, and why now

On paper, the logic is overwhelming. Sepang sits next to Kuala Lumpur International Airport — a freight operation’s dream for a flyaway race arranged at short notice — and just up the road from Singapore, creating a natural back-to-back. The circuit has hosted MotoGP annually without interruption, meaning the operational skeleton of a major event already exists. And unlike Turkey’s Istanbul Park or Portugal’s Portimão, also canvassed, it requires no construction work to be race-ready.

The romance needs no selling at all. Sepang hosted the Malaysian Grand Prix every year from 1999 to 2017, when hosting fees and declining ticket sales ended the relationship. Its final edition was won by Max Verstappen; its record winner, with four victories, is Sebastian Vettel. Fans and drivers have campaigned for its return ever since, and the reaction to this week’s reports — “one of the best circuits finally makes its deserved comeback,” ran one typical verdict — suggests the homecoming will be rapturous, whatever name is on the ticket. Malaysia’s youth and sports minister confirmed on Friday that the government is “actively conducting discussions and assessing the proposal,” having received “preliminary information regarding the possibility of hosting a Formula 1 race at the Sepang International Circuit as a replacement for the Bahrain Grand Prix.”

The calendar mathematics

Beneath the sentiment lies hard accounting. F1’s broadcast contracts typically demand a minimum of 21 or 22 races; with Bahrain and Jeddah already gone, and the season-closing double-header in Qatar (November 27-29) and Abu Dhabi (December 4-6) still under threat from the same conflict, the championship was staring at a 20-race season and expensive rebate clauses. Sepang keeps the confirmed tally at 22 — and buys Formula 1 breathing room as it weighs contingency plans for December, with Portimão and Imola the leading candidates should the Gulf finale fall through. A decision on those races does not have to be made until mid-September, according to F1 president Stefano Domenicali.

Saudi Arabia, for its part, appears out of luck: Jeddah’s street circuit requires weeks of temporary construction, and no plausible slot remains on the calendar. The 2026 season will almost certainly contain no Saudi Arabian Grand Prix at all.

The run-in, as it now stands

Note the shape of October: Baku on a Saturday (moved for an Azerbaijani public holiday), Sepang the following weekend, Singapore a week later — a punishing trans-Asian triple-header that will test every logistics department in the paddock, softened only slightly by the extra day Baku’s Saturday scheduling hands the freight crews.

The sporting stakes

Every race added or removed reshuffles the arithmetic of a championship fight that is currently balanced on a knife-edge: Kimi Antonelli leads Lewis Hamilton by 45 points, with George Russell a further five back and the summer break a week away. A 23rd scoring opportunity — or a 21st — could yet decide where the title goes. Russell, for one, is asking for more, not less.

“I’d like a season with 24 races and would love to race as many times as possible between now and the end of the season. It doesn’t depend on whether I’m in the lead, second, third or fourth. I just want to race. I love racing, the battle. I’d race every weekend if I could.” George Russell · Mercedes

What happens next

Sepang’s appointment remains, officially, a study rather than a signature: F1 has laid out the logistical requirements and Kuala Lumpur is completing its feasibility assessment, with the Prime Minister’s promised Sunday announcement the moment the pencils become ink. Should it be confirmed, the championship will reconvene after the summer break with its calendar — at last — stable until November, and with one of the sport’s best-loved circuits back in the fold, however it got there.

There is something faintly absurd about a Bahrain Grand Prix contested under Malaysian skies, in tropical heat rather than desert dusk. But in a season that has already delivered a rookie champion-elect, a Cadillac on the grid and a Saturday in Budapest that broke the sport’s most reliable streak, absurdity is simply the house style. Sepang waited nine years for this call. It was never going to mind whose name was on the invitation.