Red Bull team principal Christian Horner defended his new driver Liam Lawson after he was eliminated in the first round of qualifying on his debut for the team.
Lawson made a mistake on his final run in Q1 which cost him his chance to progress beyond the first round of qualifying. He lost time earlier in the day when a power unit problem prevented him running in final practice.
“It was a tough day for him because losing [final practice] at a track that he’s never raced at – he’s the only driver on the grid not to have raced here – immediately put him on the back foot,” Horner told the official F1 channel.
“His first run was pretty decent, considering the lack of mileage, but then unfortunately a lock-up on the second run, a mistake on the third run, the pressure’s just building and building at that point. So you can’t judge him on today’s performance, but hopefully he can have a reasonable run tomorrow.”
Lawson was one second slower than his team mate Max Verstappen in Q1, the largest gap between any pair of team mates who completed laps.
“Max is a machine of a team mate to be next to,” said Horner. “You can’t judge Liam on what we’ve seen so far. It’d be very unfair to do that.
“He’s had a really difficult run so far. Let’s see about the race tomorrow, and then of course, as we get to tracks that he starts to know, I think he’ll start to come alive.”
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Horner praised the drivers from Red Bull’s second team, Racing Bulls, who both qualified ahead of Lawson. Yuki Tsunoda, whom Red Bull passed over for promotion to their team this year, took fifth on the grid.
“Yuki did a great job today and I have to commend Isack Hadjar as well,” said Horner. “I thought, of the rookies, he did an outstanding job. So it’s great for that team, great for Yuki to be to be right up there ahead of the Ferraris.”
However Horner said it was too soon to suggest Red Bull had promoted the wrong driver. “We’ve got a sample of one,” he said. “You have to remember how close Liam was to him. Isack Hadjar as well is doing a great job.
“Yuki, you can see that experience is playing through now. He’s an experienced grand prix driver, and he’s using it, he’s driving with his head, he’s doing a good job, and it’s good for him to be starting at the sharp end of the grid. It’s exactly what he needs to be doing to keep saying, ‘look I’m still here’.”
Lawson admitted he was unhappy with his performance. “We expected the start of quali to be tough, to be honest,” he told Sky afterwards. “The first laps were expected to be off and then we were just planning on building through the session.
“But obviously going off on that second lap sort of put everything out of order a bit. Then the last lap was good, honestly, just until the last sector where I just had a big drop.”
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Lawson said his problem in final practice “obviously doesn’t help any of this but I also shouldn’t be going off in quali.”
He said he was on course to make a significant improvement on his final lap but struggled with his tyres in the final sector.
“Before turn nine we were about half a second up,” he said. “And then obviously we would have just kept improving.
“But I already had a snap through nine and 10, I think the tyres were already starting to drop there. That’s something we’ve just been battling this weekend and obviously something that we missed practising in P3.”
However Lawson believes Red Bull have made progress with their car. “We feel like we made a step with the car today, regardless of this. Obviously Max is in a good position so we definitely made a step and obviously the weather tomorrow is variable so let’s see.”
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Lando Norris led a McLaren one-two in qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix, but he suffered a scare in Q3 when his first lap time was deleted.
Q1
Norris set the pace in the first phase of qualifying but his advantage over his closest rivals was thin. Russell was only a few hundredths of a second slower after switching to soft tyres and set some competitive laps on the medium rubber earlier in the session. Verstappen also looked quick, almost matching Norris on his first soft tyre run.
Oliver Bearman’s dire weekend continued, albeit this time seemingly through no fault of his own. Having had a crash and a spin during practice, his participation in qualifying ended after one lap with a technical problem. Completing Haas’s misery, his team mate Esteban Ocon was slowest.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli limped into the pits with sparks flying from the rear of his W16, the legacy of bib damage apparently caused by an earlier kerb strike. Mercedes were unable to repair it before the end of the session, which compromised his final runs.
He slipped to 15th place in the closing moments, then fell victim to fellow newcomer Gabriel Bortoleto. The Sauber driver pinched the final place in Q2 from Antonelli with his final lap, beating his team mate Nico Hulkenberg on his debut in the process. Hulkenberg said his car “just didn’t feel very good, very connected,” said on his way back to the pits.
New Red Bull driver Liam Lawson joined those who were eliminated in the first round. He complained his tyres faded at the end of his final lap, and slid off at the penultimate corner before pitting.
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Q1 result
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Q2
Norris stayed on top in the second phase of qualifying, though his team mate led much of the session until the dying moments. The McLaren pair both lapped in the 1’15.4s, Verstappen’s Red Bull an ever-present threat just a tenth of a second behind.
Russell went through in fourth place. The stewards briefly suspected he had impeded Leclerc at turn three but ruled no investigation was needed. The Ferrari drivers followed him into Q3, Hamilton doing so despite a spin at the exit of turn 11.
That spin led to DRS being briefly deactivated, which disadvantaged some drivers, notably Jack Doohan, who dropped out in 14th place. Bortoleto was 15th after a hair-raising moment on the exit kerb at turn four.
Both Aston Martin drivers also went no further. Fernando Alonso damaged his floor earlier in the session which his team said impaired his final run. Newcomer Isack Hadjar missed the cut for Q3 by just six-hundredths of a second on his debut.
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Q2 result
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Q3
McLaren’s challenge looked like it was going to fall apart after their final runs in Q3. Piastri made a mess of the penultimate corner, slithering wide, and producing a 1’16.147 which his rivals made light work of. Norris appeared to be among them, but his 1’15.921 was deleted when he ran wide at turn four.
That handed an opportunity to their rivals, who grabbed it. Leclerc was first to beat Piastri, then Russell and finally Verstappen, whose 1’15.671 put him on top.
Verstappen’s effort was a tenth of a second off his best from Q2. “The guy in front of me kept going off everywhere,” he reported. That was Hamilton, who only managed seventh, 0.656s off.
With Norris sitting 10th without a time, race engineer Will Joseph suggested they avoid risking being held up in traffic. “Lando, why don’t we go first, do our own thing?” he asked. “Nope,” Norris replied confidently.
His confidence was repaid. Piastri produced a stunning final lap, thrilling the local fans with a 1’15.180 to claim the top spot. But Norris displaced him moments later, claiming pole position with a lap of 1’15.096.
Russell temporarily took third place off Verstappen until the Red Bull driver hit back. The Ferrari drivers were poised to claim the third row of the grid, then were stunned by a pair of brilliant laps by two midfielders.
First Alexander Albon claimed fifth on the grid, then Yuki Tsunoda took it away from him. Hamilton will therefore start his first race for Ferrari in eighth place.
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Q3 result
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Liam Lawson faces a tough challenge in his first race for Red Bull, too. He was well off Verstappen’s pace yesterday and did effectively no running in first practice due to a power unit problem on his car. That will also have compromised Red Bull’s attempts to compare two different front wings: Lawson has been running the original specification, Verstappen an updated version.
However first of all we need to see who will get beyond Q1. Haas face an uphill struggle, especially Oliver Bearman who’s had one crash and one spin in two days, covering just a dozen laps. Sauber also haven’t been quick, though Nico Hulkenberg pulled out a quick time in second practice yesterday, so he could spring a surprise.
Mercedes could have a say in this as well. George Russell was right up there in final practice, less than four-hundredths of a second off Piastri, and he had pole position for two of the last three grands prix last season.
Ferrari looked like strong candidates yesterday when Charles Leclerc set the fastest time. He was less happy with his car in final practice, however, and it remains to be seen whether Ferrari will get it back in the shape he wants. Lewis Hamilton has been behind his new team mate so far this weekend, but has gradually edged closer, and the gap between them was less than two-tenths of a second in final practice.
McLaren took pole for the last grand prix in Abu Dhabi and appear to have picked up where they left off. Oscar Piastri was fastest in practice this morning and is vying to become the first Australian ever to start their home race from pole position. His team mate Lando Norris is not to be discounted, of course. He may only have been 10th fastest in final practice, but conspicuously backed out of what looked like being quick laps.
However Red Bull haven’t had pole position for a grand prix since June last year – the Austrian Grand Prix. Verstappen would have had pole in Qatar, of course, but for that hotly debated one-place grid penalty.
So who’s the favourite for the first pole position of 2025? Max Verstappen has set pole at this race for the last two years in a row and was within a tenth of a second of the fastest time in final practice.
Qualifying for the 2025 Australian Grand Prix is coming up next.
Alpine team principal Oliver Oakes has explained the team’s unusually large roster of reserve drivers.
Ahead of this weekend’s opening Formula 1 round in Australia, Alpine named Kush Maini as its fourth reserve driver for the 2025 season. He joins Paul Aron, Ryo Hirakawa and Franco Colapinto who were announced previously.
Oakes said the team is anticipating developments in the driver market. He noted McLaren’s recent decision to re-sign Oscar Piastri, whom the world champions controversially poached from Alpine three years ago when he was a member of their junior driver programme.
“Obviously we had Paul already in the wings and I think the option with Franco that appeared there, that’s sort of with an eye to the future as well,” Oakes told Sky. “I think we’ve just seen it recently of McLaren tying down Oscar, the driver market is going to change and for us, we wanted to have options further down the line.”
Aron has tested for Alpine this year
Alpine’s decision to sign Colapinto came amid speculation executive consultant Flavio Briatore was keen to promote him in place of Jack Doohan, who will start his second F1 race for the team this weekend. Oakes acknowledged there’s “been a lot of noise” around Doohan, as a member of a rival team publicly suggested Alpine will replace him before the end of the year, but said both his drivers have the team’s backing.
“Obviously we’ve got Franco there with a big following. Paul’s done a phenomenal job in F2 and he has been quick as well, jumping in the car testing. But I think that’s a nice option to have for the team.
“We need those reserve drivers. It’s a big programme with the TPC [testing of previous cars] testing, the simulator. Obviously as a race driver, you’d love to probably not have someone clipping at your heels. But also from our side, you know, we’ve been pretty open that Jack and Pierre [Gasly] both have our full support.”
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However Oakes admitted the team’s decision to hire so many reserve drivers had added to the speculation over Doohan.
“I think I was probably a little bit too supportive, maybe, saying people should just give him a bit of a break,” he said. “We put him in that situation by having a few reserve drivers, but that gave us options as a team.
“But he did a good job in Bahrain. He’s been very good here out of the blocks. And I think you can see he’s getting a bit of confidence because it isn’t easy for the rookies. We saw then on track that, you know, a couple of early mistakes can put you on the back foot.”
Speaking after final practice, Oakes said he was pleased with Doohan’s progress so far this year.
“We just said to him, keep your head down, also enjoy yourself, because at the end of the day, that opening weekend, everything’s going to come at you pretty fast,” he explained.
“But he’s just done a very, very solid start and that’s what you want to see. You want to see a young driver building up to it, doing the basics right. He’s done a good job against Pierre so far and you can only gauge yourself [against] your team mate.”
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Oscar Piastri raised the expectations of his home crowd in Melbourne by setting the fastest time in final practice.
However there was little to choose between the three quickest teams at the end of the last hour of running before qualifying. George Russell, second for Mercedes, and Max Verstappen, third for Red Bull, both lapped within a tenth of a second of Piastri’s time.
Yesterday’s pace-setter Charles Leclerc made it four different cars in the top four, lapping just over a quarter of a second off Piastri. However the Ferrari driver was less happy with the change in balance he felt since yesterday, complaining his car was “understeery”.
The two drivers who were arguably most in need of extra running got almost none. Oliver Bearman, whose crash yesterday left him with just a dozen laps on the board, joined the track immediately after the pit lane exit lights turn green. To his team’s dismay, he spun into a gravel trap at turn 11 soon afterwards, causing another session stoppage.
New Red Bull driver Liam Lawson, who was only 17th accompanied Bearman onto the circuit when the session began. However he soon returned to the pits with an apparent power unit problem and never re-emerged.
Verstappen, still running the newer front wing specification on his RB21 compared to his team mate, pressed on alone. Having lagged well off the pace yesterday, he improved his time by over a second.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli had a trouble-free run to the fifth fastest time in the Mercedes.
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Behind him, Williams underlined their status as potential midfield front runners. By the end of the session Carlos Sainz Jnr was just three-tenths of a second off the pace, with team mate Alexander Albon just six thousandths of a second behind him.
Lewis Hamilton was eighth, two-tenths of a second off Leclerc. He kept pressing race engineer Ricardo Adami for details on the gap between them, and appeared to be losing the most time in the quicker right-hander of turn six, where the gravel trap has been expanded since last year and now extends right up to ther edge of the kerb.
Yuki Tsunoda put Racing Bulls in the top five. Lando Norris completed the top 10, six-tenths of a second off Piastri, after abandoning a better lap in the penultimate corner. He did, however, set the fastest time of anyone in the final sector before the session ended.
2025 Australian Grand Prix Grand Prix third practice result
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2025 Australian Grand Prix Grand Prix combined practice times
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Third practice for the 2025 Australian Grand Prix is coming up next.
Charles Leclerc headed the first day of practice for the 2025 Formula 1 season, but even he isn’t fully at one with his new car yet.
“We did good preparation work because the feeling with the car was good,” said Leclerc after today’s practice sessions. “There’s obviously things that we need to improve, as always, and I’m not very happy with the balance yet.
“But we are in a much better place compared to Bahrain testing. There’s still some performance to find but that’s the same for everybody in the paddock. These cars are pretty new for everyone and so you’ve got to push it to understand where exactly the limit is. But it’s been a solid first day and now we’ve got to wait and see how it goes tomorrow when we push a bit more.”
In 24 hours’ time we’ll know the pecking order for the first of this year’s 24 rounds. But how closely will that resemble what we saw on Friday? Leclerc admits it’s “too early to say.”
Leclerc was rapid over a single lap
“I don’t think we’ve seen the real pace of everybody yet,” he said. “I think some teams might hide their gain a bit more than others.
“For sure McLaren is up there. I think Red Bull might be struggling a little bit more for now, but you never know with them. Especially with Max [Verstappen], you can never really rule them out. So I’m sure they will be in the fight and Mercedes looks strong as well.”
McLaren looked strong over a multi-lap run, but Lando Norris said he found it difficult to get the best out of the car over a single flying lap. “We’ve got a good baseline but I’m certainly not happy, not confident with the car in terms of finding the best balance and being consistent enough,” he said. “Especially on low-fuel.”
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“On high fuel, I felt good,” he added. “Just low fuel, still similar to Bahrain, too many inconsistencies, too many problems, so a bit of a struggle.”
Melbourne asphalt doesn’t suit Red Bull, says Verstappen
Verstappen took pole position at this round for the last two years in a row. But he appears doubtful of a repeat after ending today’s running seventh. “We’ve never really been that good here since that new Tarmac update,” he explained.
“But still, it’s the same for everyone. So we just have to make sure that we find a bit more pace. At the moment we are definitely lacking a bit to fight up front.”
Strikingly, there was no repeat of Verstappen’s complaints about his car balance which were regular occurences last year as they began to encounter problems with their RB20.
“The balance wasn’t even completely out,” he said, “no massive or major problems, but somehow the grip was not coming. I was just struggling on all four tyres, really, in sector one and the last sector. That means of course that we are not really up there at the moment.”
However from where they are at the moment it would be a surprise if Red Bull did not make a significant step forwards on Saturday. And the fight for the final places in Q3 could be incredibly close.
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Teams’ 2024 performance in context
NB. Racing Bulls was RB in 2024
Alpine had plenty to gain in Melbourne
Before diving into this year’s data, a reminder of the situation at last year’s Australian Grand Prix. This was the third round of 2024, at a point in the season where Red Bull was clearly the team to beat. Verstappen arrived in Melbourne having won the previous nine races in a row, and 19 of the past 20, stretching back into 2023.
What we didn’t know then was that Red Bull were about to be caught and overhauled by some of their rivals. They narrowly had the quickest car over a single lap over the full season, but were much more competitive in Melbourne than at most rounds. As the data above shows, only Ferrari got within 0.5% of Red Bull’s fastest lap time at Albert Park last year.
Conversely, McLaren were less competitive in Australia than they were over the rest of the season. The same goes, to an even greater degree, for Mercedes, Haas and above all Alpine, who were still struggling with an overweight car 12 months ago.
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Teams’ progress vs 2024
Three teams have already lapped quicker around Melbourne than they did last year. First among them, unsurprisingly given their poor showing last year, is Alpine. However given the strides they made at the end of last year, and the promise they showed in testing, were not fully reflected in 14th and 15th on the times sheets today, perhaps because Pierre Gasly often struggled with traffic.
Red Bull is at the other extreme. Their best lap time so far is 1.1 seconds slower than they managed in 2024, while every other team is within 0.6s or better.
Are Red Bull struggling so much with their car that they may fail to improve their lap time year-on-year? It seems unlikely. Verstappen suffered a lot with traffic during his qualifying simulation run in second practice, eventually setting his best time on his sixth lap, by which time his soft rubber would have been fading. Pace-setter Charles Leclerc did his after just a single, slow preparation lap.
However one factor is likely to inhibit how easily Red Bull and their rivals can find more lap time tomorrow: The track is forecast to be significantly hotter come the qualifying hour.
Racing Bulls have already beaten their 2024 reference lap time – just – and their drivers looked immediately comfortable with their cars when they switched to soft tyres in second practice. They stood out as one of the most impressive midfield teams in practice, along with Williams.
Williams’ long-run pace looks strong
Last year’s Carlos Sainz Jnr was clearly pleased with his car’s pace so far. “It was definitely a positive Friday for us, especially FP1 was very positive,” he said. “FP2, we didn’t manage to find performance on softs, which is something we need to look into going into tomorrow, as quali obviously on softs is going to be the main focus.
“So if we manage to unlock some potential on soft tyres, we could be competitive. But the field is extremely tight. I saw the [Racing Bulls] cars doing some very fast laps also, a bit out of nowhere. Everyone seems honestly that if they put together a good lap, anyone can be in Q3.”
However Sainz has previously said he will need a few races to suss how to get the best out of his new car on the softest rubber, which this weekend is the C5. “I was very quick on mediums and very competitive also in FP1, and as soon as everyone turned up in FP2 and I went to find the lap time on soft I clearly struggled to find the lap time on that compound,” he said. “Tomorrow we will have four or five softs in quali and hopefully that will give me a chance to unlock it but in that sense there’s work to do.”
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Teams’ 2024 and 2025 times
Haas made a poor start to their weekend
This data shows how helpful – or, often, unhelpful – first and second practice times are to establishing the pecking order. For example, Red Bull gained significantly more time from Friday to Saturday last year than Ferrari. Another reason to expect they will pick up more time tomorrow.
All bar one of the 10 teams were covered by less than a second. The outlier is Haas, who are lagging a further six-tenths of a second, puzzled by the lack of performance from their car, the situation not helped by Oliver Bearman’s crash in first practice.
Despite being one of the teams which under-performed at this track, they are further off their 2024 pace than any team besides Red Bull. But while Red Bull appear to be holding something back, Haas seem to have had an unwelcome surprise on the first day of practice, and have just an hour of running left to figure out what’s gone wrong.
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Combined practice times
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Oliver Bearman’s crash in the first practice session was especially unfortunate for Haas as their car did not live up to the team’s expectations in Australia.
The rookie spun into a barrier at turn 10 after just a dozen laps in the first practice session. The team’s mechanics worked quickly to repair the car for the second practice session, which began two-and-a-half hours after the first ended, but narrowly failed to do so.
“I’m a bit sad to have missed all the running today,” Bearman admitted afterwards. “The guys did a great job to try and get the car back out, we just ran out of time.
“I just had a small mistake in turn 10, which put me a bit wide, and out there, it’s very, very bumpy and I unfortunately lost the car.”
Bearman said that prior to his crash he “really felt confident in the car – maybe too much.”
Haas was rooted to the bottom of the times in both sessions. Esteban Ocon’s best lap of 1’18.034 was six tenths of a second off the next team.
“Today was a pretty difficult day,” team principal Ayao Komatsu admitted afterwards. “It wasn’t the performance we were expecting.
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“We have one indication as to why in FP1, but Ollie crashed so we couldn’t completely get to the bottom of why we were uncompetitive, so we need to make another step tonight and then do the best we can tomorrow.”
Ocon said “it hasn’t been the smoothest day” for the team. “Obviously it’s the first day of the year so it is normal that it goes that way, but we still have more to put together to try and get correct, to try and exploit the maximum out of the car.
“I was still not happy with the balance and how the car felt. We did a step between P1 and P2, but we need more.”
However he believes the route the team need to take with its car tomorrow “is clear for us.”
“We need to try and do that of course and hopefully we can do that in [final practice] and then build on from there,” he said.
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