Lewis Hamilton believed he had lost all chance of a positive result at Sepang after Ferrari's risky decision, before a spectacular recovery to the podium. Starting second after excellent qualifying performances, the Brit had hoped to battle with Max Verstappen for the victory. A few hours later, however, he found himself 18th, about 100 seconds behind leader Kimi Antonelli, convinced that his race was practically over. It all started with the torrential rains falling before the start at Sepang. Several cars then suffered power cuts during formation laps, including Hamilton's Ferrari. The seven-time world champion had to stop his car and restart it before the procedure was finally suspended. After more than an hour of interruption, the drivers returned to their original positions, but Ferrari then made a decision that would almost ruin Hamilton's race. With a track beginning to gradually dry, Ferrari decided to equip Hamilton and Charles Leclerc with soft slick tires for the new start. The Brit had however expressed his doubts to his team after carefully observing the state of the asphalt. "I went into the pit lane, I looked at the ground and I thought: 'It's still wet.' I went to the wall and told them: 'It's still wet.'" His engineers, however, estimated that the track would dry very quickly after the long interruption and that the turning point between wet tires and slicks might already have been reached. Hamilton then accepted the gamble. But a few moments later, when he discovered the tires chosen by Verstappen and Antonelli ahead of him, he immediately realized that Ferrari had probably made the wrong choice. "When they took the covers off Max and Kimi's tires and I saw that they were on intermediates, my heart sank. I knew we were in trouble." His concerns were immediately confirmed. Behind Verstappen, water projections clearly showed that the track was still too wet for slicks. "When we went out and I saw all the water projected behind Max's car, I thought: 'Alright, it's over. My race is really compromised.'" Hamilton even claims he had enormous difficulties simply to complete his formation lap. "I almost failed to complete the formation lap. But then, you just had to keep going. We had made this decision and we had to live with it." At the start, drivers equipped with intermediate tires quickly got ahead while the Ferraris lost positions one by one. Hamilton fell to 18th place and found himself about 100 seconds behind Antonelli after only a few laps. Ferrari could have immediately recalled its driver to fit intermediates, but Hamilton preferred to wait. According to him, making a new stop would have cost him an additional 26 seconds while his situation was already extremely compromised. The initial gamble eventually turned into an advantage when the track dried sufficiently. Hamilton began to regain an excellent rhythm and started to make up ground on his opponents. "I said: 'Let's just wait for the track to dry.' Once that happened, it was good to see that I was catching up with others. The car was excellent." Ferrari then accompanied this comeback with several effective stops and a strategy that allowed Hamilton to continue his progress in the standings. The Brit had nevertheless approached the Grand Prix with great ambitions. After his second place in qualifying, he had worked late with his engineers to prepare what was supposed to be a direct duel with Verstappen. "We were having a good weekend. The car was excellent in qualifying and securing this second place was fantastic. My engineers and I stayed here until 11:30 PM to analyze everything, and I really thought we had the opportunity to at least have a good battle with Max." Despite a scenario that seemed to have destroyed all his chances, Hamilton eventually crossed the finish line in third place behind Verstappen and Antonelli. "Coming back to the podium, I never imagined that could happen. I'm really, really grateful that we managed to get back to the podium." From a possible battle for victory to 18th place, and then back to the podium, Hamilton will have experienced one of the most eventful races of his season. And especially a comeback he himself thought impossible just minutes after the start.