Oracle Red Bull Racing

Australia Grand Prix: Saturday Report

Max Verstappen will open his 2025 campaign from third on the grid.

The

defending

champion

was

narrowly

beaten

pole

the

McLaren

duo

Lando

Norris

and

Oscar

Piastri

the

end

tight

qualifying

session

for

the

season-opening

Australia

Grand

Prix.

There

was

disappointment

for

Liam

Lawson

his

qualifying

debut

for

the

Team

the

new

recruit,

who

had

lost

all

FP3

technical

issue,

struggled

for

grip

and

exited

Q1.

He’ll

start

the

race

from

P18.

Christian Horner during Qualifying at Melbourne

FP3

After a tricky Friday left the Bulls adrift of the competition, Max promised that while the RB21 “wasn’t there yet,” he and the Team would work hard overnight to find more pace. And the efforts were partially rewarded in a tight FP3 session, with Max finishing third, just eight hundredths of a second off top spot.

On the other side of the garage, however, the Team identified an issue with Liam’s car: a PU system problem on the air side, meaning he was sidelined for the rest of the session, missing vital running time.

Liam preparing for his first qualifying session

Q1

Liam opened his first qualifying session for the Team with a lap of 1:17.094.

As the New Zealander returned to the pit lane, McLaren’s Lando Norris set an early benchmark of 1:16. Max was now on track, and though the defending champion set purple times in each of the first two sectors, he lost fragments of time in the final third of the track and he slotted into second place, just 0.015s behind his chief rival from last season.

Max headed back to the pit lane just as Liam got stuck into his second flyer, but the attempt ended in Turn 3 when he went well wide and luckily was able to use an escape road to stay out of the barriers.

With Liam looking to improve, his next flying lap began well, but battling for grip, he lost time in the second sector before an off in the penultimate corner put paid to his chance of making it through to Q2 and he finished in P18.

Also ruled out were 16th-placed Mercedes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Sauber’s 17th-placed Nico Hülkenberg, and the Haas pair of Esteban Ocon in P19 and Oliver Bearman, who had to quit the session at the start with a gearbox issue.

At the top of the order, Max’s time of 1:16.018 was good enough for third behind Norris and second-placed George Russell, while Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc went through in fourth place ahead of the second McLaren of Oscar Piastri and the other Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton.

After missing P3 we expected the start of quali to be tough, as we missed a lot of soft tyre prep that others got in. So, to be honest the first laps were expected to be off and then we were planning to just build through the session. But obviously going off on that second lap put everything out of order a bit. The last lap was decent until the final sector, we were about half a second up and we should have just kept improving but I had a big drop with my tyres and made a mistake – that’s the main reason we are out, it was stupid from me. Getting the tyres in the right window is something we have been battling with both cars this weekend and it’s something we missed practising with, when we had an improved set-up, with a big step up for P3. Missing P3 doesn’t help any of this, we have had a huge lack of running, but I also shouldn’t be going off. If I had put it together, we wouldn’t be in this situation. It is obviously not a good start, but we will have tomorrow to try and make something out of it, the weather is set to be variable, so we’ll see. I would love some rain to come to throw some options in there for us.

Liam Lawson

Q2

Max led the field out in the middle session and the Dutchman posted a strong opening flying lap of 1:15.688, though the Dutchman did suffer a couple of snaps of oversteer through the effort. That opened the door to his rivals and both McLaren drivers stepped through, with Piastri taking top spot a little over two-tenths clear, with Norris in P2. Behind Max after the first flyers were Russell, Leclerc, and VCARB's Yuki Tsunoda.

In the second runs, Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto had a nervous moment when he clattered over the kerbs in Turn 4 and almost lost control, all before Lewis Hamilton did lose control, spinning his Ferrari in Turn 11. Max managed to avoid the yellow flags that came out and disrupted the laps of the other drivers, but despite again going fastest across the first two sectors, he couldn’t hang on to the tyres and took third with a lap of 1:15.

Knocked out at the end of Q2 were VCARBs’ Isack Hadjar, who ended up as the best-placed rookie in P11, with Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll out in P12 and P13. Alpine’s Jack Doohan exited in P14, and Bortoleto qualified in 15th.

"I think today’s performance was the best we could have hoped for."

Q3

In the opening runs of Q3, Piastri pushed too hard in the penultimate corner and went wide into the dirt on his opening lap. Behind him, teammate Norris went too hard into Turn 4 and bounced over the kerb that caught out Bortoleto, and the Briton’s lap was deleted for exceeding track limits. Max flirted with the same boundary but kept it together to take provisional pole with a lap of 1:15.671.

The champion pushed to seal the opening pole of the season, but ultimately the McLarens were marginally quicker and Norris took top spot in qualifying with a lap of 1:15.096, with Piastri second.

Max’s final flyer of 1:15.481 puts him on the front of row two for the race, just ahead of Russell, the impressive Yuki Tsunoda in fifth, Albon, and Leclerc. And with rain looking likely for the race tomorrow, the forecast could include another wet weather march to the front for the champion.

I think today’s performance was the best we could have hoped for. Yesterday’s practice sessions were quite tough, but we made quite a few improvements to the car and it felt a lot better to drive. The gap is still big to McLaren and we don’t have the same pace as them at the moment, so there are still improvements to be made. However, we performed better than I expected and the car has given us enough confidence to push. Ultimately P3 today is a good result that I am happy with and it is good that we have found a bit more pace. Tomorrow, I don’t mind if it is dry or wet, but I do think it will be a lot nicer for the fans if it is good weather for them. I will just do my best and see how we go tomorrow.

Max Verstappen