[Regression]: middle / modifier click intermittently fails to open a new tab on Playwright 1.62.x

Last Good Version

1.61.1

First Bad Version

1.62.0

Steps to reproduce

1. git clone https://github.com/YuriiMotov/playwright-1.62-new-tab-mre.git
2. cd playwright-1.62-new-tab-mre
3. npm install
4. npx playwright --version - expected Version 1.62.1
5. npx playwright test --repeat-each=25 --workers=16 - see several tests fail with Test timeout of 30000ms exceeded
6. Downgrade to latest working version: npm pkg set devDependencies.@playwright/test=1.61.1 && npm install
7. npx playwright --version - expected Version 1.61.1
8. npx playwright test --repeat-each=25 --workers=16 - see tests pass

Expected behavior

I expect tests pass on 1.62.x as it was on 1.61.1 and previous versions.

Actual behavior

Several tests fail with Test timeout of 30000ms exceeded

Additional context

Only tests that attempt to open page in a new tab are affected.

--workers=16 here is to imitate overloaded machine. In fact in our case it fails with --workers=1 in CI.

See report generated by Claude Code: https://github.com/YuriiMotov/playwright-1.62-new-tab-mre/blob/master/README.md

Environment

System:
    OS: Linux 7.0 Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS 24.04.4 LTS (Noble Numbat)
    CPU: (14) x64 Intel(R) Core(TM) Ultra 5 125U
    Memory: 28.49 GB / 46.52 GB
    Container: Yes
  Binaries:
    Node: 22.23.0 - /run/user/1000/fnm_multishells/1402339_1785955498713/bin/node
    npm: 10.9.8 - /run/user/1000/fnm_multishells/1402339_1785955498713/bin/npm
    bun: 1.3.8 - /home/yurii/.bun/bin/bun
  IDEs:
    VSCode: 1.124.2 - /usr/bin/code
  Languages:
    Bash: 5.2.21 - /usr/bin/bash
  npmPackages:
    @playwright/test: 1.62.1 => 1.62.1