Audi Revolut F1 Team fought fiercely in a chaotic Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, missing out on a point on the very last lap, as Nico Hulkenberg finished 11th, with Gabriel Bortoleto 18th.

The Sepang International Circuit was battered by a monsoon shower as car headed out to the grid, causing a delay to the start of the race. Once proceedings were underway, a split of tyre choices saw half the field start on intermediate tyres, with the other half on slicks. Both Audi Revolut F1 Team drivers opted initially for dry tyres but switched for inters at the end of the formation lap - a decisive choice to change that pushed them up the field.

As the race continued, Nico emerged as a serious points contender and was running as high as ninth in the closing stages. Gabriel's afternoon was compromised by contact with Carlos Sainz at the restart from the first Safety Car, which caused damage to his car and left him with a 10-second penalty. The race was blown wide open by another, late Safety Car, caused by Alex Albon's retirement, while further drama emerged with George Russell and Lando Norris running into trouble at the final restart.

Ultimately, Nico couldn't hold on to P9, being passed by Norris and Arvid Lindblad in the final laps and had to settle for 11th place. Gabriel crossed the line in P18, nursing his damaged car to the end.
The team will return to action in next week's Singapore Grand Prix, the final leg of the Asian triple-header.

Allan McNish, Racing Director: "It was a difficult race. The weather conditions at the start were right on the edge, the crossover point between tyres, which was reflected by the split on the grid between slicks and intermediates. Already from the formation lap, it became clear to us that the intermediates were the correct choice, so we made the change and were able to recover to roughly the position we had been in before stopping for slicks on lap eight.

"Unfortunately, Gabi had contact with Sainz, which caused some damage and required an additional pit stop, and he ultimately received a ten-second penalty as well. That effectively took him out of the fight for points. Nico, on the other hand, had a strong run throughout the race: I think the strategy and the tyre choices we made were the right ones. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite enough to bring us into the points, with Lindblad getting past Nico on the final lap."

"It's disappointing to miss out on the points on the final lap for the second race running. We have looked competitive throughout the weekend, but we need to keep working hard to manage to find a little more that will put us back in the top ten."

Nico Hulkenberg: "It was an eventful race, and overall, we were in the fight for points but ultimately finished P11 again. I was much happier with my performance compared to yesterday. At the beginning we made the right call to switch to the intermediates early and, although it cost us initially, we recovered that within a lap. This put us in a good position for the rest of the race.
"There was plenty of wheel-to-wheel racing. In the end, though, we just didn't quite have the pace to hold on to the points. Realistically, we only got into that position because of trouble to the cars ahead, so it was always going to be a long shot. Still, it was a clean race from my side, many learnings for us as a team and now it's straight on to Singapore."

Gabriel Bortoleto: "First of all, I want to apologise to Carlos. I made contact with him at the restart and, unfortunately, compromised his race, as well as my own. I got damage to both my front wing and floor, and then we were too far behind to fight for anything. It wasn't a clean race after that either, it was a difficult Sunday overall. Now we take the positives and look ahead to Singapore: hopefully we can have a good result there."

Check out our Sunday gallery from Sepang here.