- Carlos Sainz organized a spontaneous four day trip to Langkawi, Malaysia for several F1 drivers between the Azerbaijan and Bahrain Grand Prix weekends, flying straight from Baku rather than into Kuala Lumpur.
- George Russell, Alex Albon, Oscar Piastri, Gabriel Bortoleto, Ollie Bearman and former driver Roberto Merhi joined Sainz on the island, going karting, cycling and training together away from the paddock.
- Lando Norris skipped the karting entirely, choosing a game of chess on the beach, and says the time together off track changes nothing about how hard the same drivers race each other on Sunday.
No One Has Ever Flown From Baku to Langkawi
Carlos Sainz noticed a problem on the Fan Stage in Baku before anyone had actually solved it. Several drivers were trying to book flights straight from Azerbaijan to Kuala Lumpur ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, a long haul that would have dropped them into a city with four empty days and little to do but wait for the circuit to open.
“It was a combination,” Sainz explained in Thursday’s media session in Sepang. “I think I saw that there were drivers trying to get on a flight to Malaysia from Baku on Saturday night, and rather than flying straight to Kuala Lumpur, I offered, why don’t we go somewhere else? I found a hotel on an island to spend four or five days that looked really nice, with good cycling and a good gym. I said, why don’t we, instead of all flying to Kuala Lumpur for four days, which is more of a city and has less planned for us at least, fly to this nice resort? We all jumped on that plane on Saturday night and flew straight from Baku to Langkawi. No one has probably ever flown from Baku to Langkawi. It’s the most random flight ever.”
Albon had let the plan slip first, describing it on the Fan Stage with the caution of someone who knew how it would sound. “We’re going to go on like a boys’ trip, I guess,” he said. “I think there are a few drivers where we’re going to hang out.” Sainz, his Williams teammate, filled in the rest with a laugh. “It’s going to be a boys’ trip. We just realised no one’s bringing their girlfriend. But it’s not like we’re going to do anything exciting. We’re going to be in a resort in the middle of nowhere.”
Seven Drivers on a Small Island
Sainz and Albon were joined in Langkawi by George Russell, Oscar Piastri, Gabriel Bortoleto, Ollie Bearman and former F1 driver Roberto Merhi. Lando Norris, racing for McLaren and based separately, met up with the group later in the trip without taking part in the karting.
For Sainz, the appeal had little to do with the island itself and everything to do with time he almost never gets in a normal season. “Normally on race weekends, we never see each other,” he said. “I never see all the guys that I got to spend time with because we all have our own commitments, so very rarely do you actually get to spend some proper time with them. The island we went to was quite fun because it was a small island and you put seven drivers on an island and see what they end up doing. It was a bit of a social experiment, for sure. Those four days, I would say, were interesting. I personally got to meet a lot more characters and some drivers that I didn’t know. I got to see their story, where they came from, how they ended up being the way they are, and why, and got to bond with them and understand them a bit better.”
Oscar Piastri described the same stretch of days as a rare chance to switch off with people who understand the pressure he lives under every other week of the year. “It was pretty last minute, but it was good fun being able to switch off from racing a bit,” Piastri said. “It’s very rare that you get so many drivers actually spending time together away from a racetrack. At the end of the day, we’re 22 guys that love racing. Obviously, it’s a bit tricky to talk about certain things because we are racing each other, but we’ve got a lot in common that we just never really get to talk about. So it was quite nice. We all did our own separate things at points. It wasn’t like we were glued to each other the whole time. Maybe on the go-kart track we were. It was good fun, honestly.”
Carnage at the Kart Track
Whatever bonding happened off the track didn’t survive the trip to the local go kart circuit. The drivers picked their own racing names for the session. Russell went with G Dawg. Albon chose Albino. Sainz kept it simple with his race number, 55. Piastri used his initials, OP.
Russell, fresh off an Azerbaijan Grand Prix win, described the session with the same intensity he brings to an actual grid. “It was wild,” he said. “Firstly I got helped out by the Malaysians. I went over to one of the guys like, what is the best kart? And he put new tyres on, so I had this kart that was like 1.5 seconds quicker than everyone else and they were kicking off. It was carnage, but I thought it would be. Bortoleto ended up with bruises on his back, Piastri almost broke a rib, it was like a banger race. I actually pitted before the end because I was like, I am going to break something here, so I actually don’t know who won. Bearman put Merhi through a wall on the first lap of the race and then it was like, who else could hit someone else off the hardest?”
Bearman, who skipped straight from the karting chaos into his pre-race press conference, described the trip as training as much as mischief. “It was a good training camp, to be honest, and I’m working hard to prepare for this race,” he said. “You know, it’s a very unique climate that we have here and of course next week in Singapore as well. It was very fun to spend a bit of time with some of the guys outside of the circuit, and that’s also quite rare to be able to do that, and unlock a kind of a new side of all of the people that I was spending time with. I very much enjoyed myself, and it’s also nice to have a bit of a reset. A few days off, in a way, but also I’ve been training quite hard.”
The One Who Chose Chess
Lando Norris watched the karting footage from a distance and came away with a theory about his rivals rather than any regret about missing out. “Everyone else went karting, but I did a bit of training and stayed in,” he said. “From what I heard, I certainly don’t think it made anyone treat each other any nicer. I think it made it even worse. From what I heard, everyone put each other in a wall at some point.”
Norris spent part of the trip playing chess on the beach instead, a choice he has no interest in defending or explaining away. “I think people are able to separate personal life and personal time from when you’re putting a helmet on,” he said. “I think you become two different people. You are two different versions of yourself. So it’s nice that you get to spend a little bit of time with them outside of racing. I knew all of these guys pretty well already, but at the same time, they all went karting and I thought, this is a bit of time when I don’t have to spend time with them. It’s nice to have a bit of time to myself and do my own thing. That’s what I enjoy a lot in my life. I don’t agree with that kind of statement that racing is more friendly. I think at times it’s the opposite of that. But it’s nice that we get to just be normal people away from the track, have a bit of downtime and get to see maybe a different side of people. That’s a good thing as well.”
Norris was also spotted carrying a camcorder for his own upcoming Amazon Prime documentary, with several camera and boom mic operators visible just behind him in photos from the trip, a crew that resembled the production teams following Netflix’s Drive to Survive for its ninth season. Whether any of what happened on that island shows up on screen is still an open question. What isn’t in question is that seven of the sport’s most guarded competitors spent four days picking usernames, crashing go karts into each other on purpose, and learning things about one another that race weekends never leave room for.
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