Max Verstappen sets new F1 record under bizarre circumstances

Max Verstappen's victory in the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia set a new all-time F1 record for the longest gap between wins at the same circuit. 

From pole, Verstappen recorded a hat-trick on his way to the first-ever victory for Red Bull-Ford Powertrains - a historic moment for the team with its in-house unit. 

The victory, the 72nd of Verstappen's career, came at Sepang after it stepped in to host the Bahrain GP, which was unable to do so at Sakhir due to the Iran War and was postponed from its April date.

Sepang offered to step in, marking F1's return to Malaysia for the first time since 2017, when the government decided to stop cancel the race owing to falling attendance. 

That final Malaysian GP was won by Verstappen for his second grand prix victory, and nine years later, he claimed victory at Sepang once again. 

This nine-year and three day gap translates into 3,291 days, and shatters the previous record of Nigel Mansell. 

The win, which will officially count as a Bahrain GP victory, is Verstappen's third in that particular race, after his 2023 and 2024 successes.

Mansell won the 1985 South African Grand Prix at Kyalami in the final race in the country under the Apartheid regime, with then FIA president Jean-Marie Balestre declaring that F1 would not race again in the country until Apartheid was over.

Nelson Mandela was released from prison on Robben Island in February 1990, with sporting events returning to South Africa over the next few years, including the F1 grand prix at Kyalami in 1992.

Mansell would go on to win this first race back in 1992, 2,325 days after the 1985 race. 

The South African Grand Prix would run for two years upon its return in the early 1990s, with the 1993 race being won by Alain Prost - the final time to date F1 has raced in Africa, with repeated attempts to return to the continent, including at Kyalami and in Rwanda emerging in the last few years.