Malaysia's Sepang circuit hosted a popular -- and, as it stands, one-off -- return to the Formula 1 calendar, although it was overshadowed by three days of travel chaos and nightmare experiences for fans.
The race itself delivered an entertaining spectacle full of incident, albeit after a demonstration of the worst part of F1's new V6 turbo hybrid engines. So where has its stand-in appearance as the Bahrain Grand Prix left it in terms of returning in the future?
After the race, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim confirmed discussions with F1 about the likelihood of the nation becoming a regular F1 host again.
"Had the opportunity to hold a meeting with the President who also serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Formula 1, Stefano Domenicali, before the race began at the Sepang International Circuit," he posted on X. "We discussed the prospects of reinstating the Malaysia Grand Prix permanently in the Formula 1 calendar, thereby fulfilling the long-standing desire of fans who have eagerly awaited its return to Sepang. However, this effort will require time because arranging the race calendar must take into account the packed schedule as well as existing contractual commitments with host countries."
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Sources with knowledge of the calendar have told ESPN that any deal with Sepang will be a long way off as things stand, but there is clearly renewed energy behind the circuit's viability as a race host. F1 boss Domenicali often says there's a long waiting list of venues who are hoping to get an event of their own and he's not wrong.
Sources have told ESPN Sepang has put itself into Formula 1's good graces by accommodating the Bahrain event -- which will help the sport keep its commercial obligation of not dropping below 22 events in 2026 -- but that also does not mean it has automatically shot to the top of any waiting or priority list
One well-placed paddock source told ESPN that, given the current F1 deals in existence, the earliest Sepang could come back to the race calendar would be 2030, a timeline Sepang officials would not confirm or deny when asked on record. The official line all weekend, until the prime minister's comments, that all focus was on the 2026 event. But a lot needs to happen for any deal beyond that to gather pace.
Finances will be the biggest obstacle. Bahrain stumped up most if not all of the reported $50 million hosting fee for this year's event. Without that, there's no chance Sepang could have been a 2027 fallback option, it wasn't sat around with a bucketload of cash just waiting for an opportunity to host a race if needed.The venue dropped off the calendar in 2017 because it could not afford F1's hosting fees as they were then -- an influx of new races this side of the pandemic has escalated the average fee even more, with F1 enjoying a commercial boom it has never experienced before.
But one thing was clear from Sunday's event: the appetite for the sport in Malaysia is bigger than ever. A lack of fan interest in a fallow time for F1 killed the event off a decade ago: demand appears to be well and truly back now and that might help the circuit in its bid to find the financial backing it would need to even have a shot at having a seat at the table in future.
Why was the fan experience so bad?
One of the standout moments of Sepang's weekend was the loud roar from the fans when Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton made crucial passes during the race -- Malaysia's fanbase was always loud and over 110,000 people were in attendance for raceday alone.
Many of them will have endured a lot to have seen those overtakes.
Because Sepang's event was the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, Bahrain's race organisers took control of all elements of the event -- it flew in meat for the paddock, local ice cream vendors, over 500 event marshals, and even organised its Gulf Air Dreamliner to fly over the grid (even in the middle of a deluge of rain) to keep its prerace tradition alive. It was the equivalent of someone leasing out a friend's house for a party, but telling them they would deal with every single facet of the event.
The fact that it was Bahrain and not Malaysia involved in planning every detail, plus the number of people in attendance, caused problems.
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"We're not used to this," Bahrain International Circuit chief executive Sheikh Salman bin Isa Al Khalifa told ESPN ahead of the weekend. "It's not like we have experience in those numbers."
Bahrain's infrastructure is usually built around an event which caters for 55,000 fans a day, but the attendance was double that every day. The grandstand along the start-finish line alone held 35,000 fans. Bahraini officials were not only dealing with a completely unfamiliar circuit and external road system but an influx of fans they simply do not deal with at their Sakhir equivalent.
Anyone travelling into the circuit could see that the people organising this year's event were overwhelmed. From Friday onwards, there were reports of fans having to walk up to 11 kilometers home because shuttles had simply stopped without warning immediately after sessions finished. ESPN saw hoards of people walking down the motorway's hard shoulder on all three days of the event, noticeably at its worst on Friday but bad every day.
Things compounded the problem, like the Grab and Bolt exclusion zone stopping rideshare companies from getting anywhere near the venue. Once fans got into the venue, they found progress getting anywhere slow. Queues for grandstand gates were slow, queues for concessions stands even slower.
F1 photographer Kym Illman extensively covered the chaos within the circuit on his video channels -- he reported plastic water bottles being banned on entry (fans then had to buy bottled water inside the venue) and long lines of up to an hour for water refill stations, many of which ran out of water early in the event, and there were reports of 50 ambulances being sent into the circuit on Friday alone for people who had passed out in the humid conditions.
Videos from Saturday's DJ Axwell concert on Saturday -- in a field which was supposed to accommodate 10,000 people -- had upwards of 50,000 people in attendance, with many leaving the venue either during qualifying or immediately after qualifying having heard horror stories from the day before. It caused an almighty bottleneck outside the circuit and many fans were left stranded in no man's land -- unable to get anywhere, but also not allowed to return inside the circuit -- for hours on end in the stifling Malaysia heat.
This appeared to have caused similar on Sunday, with various reports on social media of fans leaving before the end of the race to try and avoid similar chaos, but still getting back to their hotels 10 or 11 hours later. It all left a sour taste for many and overshadowed what was otherwise a popular return for one of F1's great venues of its more recent past.
Who was to blame was an open question -- many in attendance pointed the finger at Bahrain's organisers, who appeared to have underestimated the logistical challenge of putting on a race at a venue many of them had never visited before, but the eight-week turnaround from the announcement to the event did not help.
Sources have told ESPN that F1 would have intervened and made tweaks to basic things such as motorway signage had there been more time to properly come up with a plan of action -- most events are meticulously planned and mapped out for months in advance, and many of them do not go ahead without problems anyway. Local Malaysian police also seemed slightly overwhelmed by the amount of traffic outside the circuit, especially on Friday and Saturday.
That might all be simplified should Sepang host the event itself in future -- the venue regularly holds a MotoGP event without similar issues and it seems as though a perfect storm of things contributed to the bad time a lot of fans experienced across the three days.