Marco Rossi · F1-Korrespondent
Ferrari sent Hamilton out on slicks in wet conditions, dropping him to 18th place. Instead of pitting, he stayed out, waited for the track to dry, and claimed his first podium since Silverstone.
The opening laps at Sepang made it look like Ferrari had thrown away the Grand Prix before it really began. Yet Lewis Hamilton still finished third at the Malaysian Grand Prix, 4.919 seconds behind winner Max Verstappen and Andrea Kimi Antonelli. Charles Leclerc rounded out the result in fourth, a result no one thought possible after the start. It's Hamilton's first podium finish since the British Grand Prix.
The Gamble on Slicks
After the aborted first start attempt, the race finally got underway at 4:33 p.m. local time, shortened to 55 laps. The track was still wet, with most frontrunners including Verstappen, Antonelli, and Russell starting on intermediates. Ferrari bet on soft slicks for both cars, gambling that the track would dry quickly. McLaren took a similar risk with Norris and Piastri.
The bet didn't pay off initially. Hamilton, starting from second, found no grip on the slippery asphalt and was shuffled back through the field. He briefly trailed the leader by over a minute and had fallen to 18th place. When Valtteri Bottas spun out at turn 13 in lap nine and brought out the safety car, Ferrari asked over the radio whether he should pit. Hamilton declined. He described his response after the race on Sky Sports this way: "We made the decision, we have to live with it, and we're staying out here until this damn place dries up."
The Comeback
The track cooperated. With each lap, the ideal line dried out further, and drivers on intermediates had to pit to switch to slicks. Hamilton didn't need that stop, he was already on the right tires. With consistent quick laps, he worked his way through the field, back into the top five by mid-race, later switching to medium tires.
The final phase sealed the deal. Alexander Albon's Williams stopped on track, turning a virtual safety car into a real one, bunching up the field again. At the restart on lap 51, Hamilton was right there with fresh soft tires directly behind Isack Hadjar; two laps later he passed the Red Bull at turn one. George Russell's earlier loss of a podium position due to a power unit failure had opened the door for him. "The safety car at the end was a blessing that got me onto the podium," Hamilton said.
Leclerc's Different Path to Fourth
Leclerc started with the same tire choice but took a different route. After an early contact with Nico Hülkenberg, he pitted, got a new front wing, and switched to intermediates. He too fought his way back and passed Hadjar one lap after his teammate. The two Ferraris never battled directly, each reaching their result on separate paths. For the Scuderia, that meant 27 points on an afternoon that looked far bleaker after the opening lap.
What This Result Means and What It Doesn't
Hamilton himself spoke of mixed feelings. He said he was very grateful to be back on the podium but admitted that his heart sank when he saw the slicks at the start and he'd already written off the race. "It's crazy when you think we were over a minute down."
He wasn't willing to call the afternoon a turning point for Ferrari. "We have a great car, we're just in an era where we know we're lacking pace," Hamilton said, adding that Ferrari would have to live with this deficit through season's end and could only close the gap next year. Sepang was thus less evidence of newfound strength than of something else: that a seven-time world champion can still make the right call in the cockpit of a gambled-away race, even against his team's first instinct.
