Red Bull’s Liam Lawson is ruing a “tough” Qualifying which left him 18th on the grid for the 2025 Australian Grand Prix.
A power unit issue prevented Lawson from participating in FP3 but the Kiwi encountered sloppy mistakes which saw him suffer a Q1 exit on his debut for Red Bull, having replaced Sergio Perez in the off-season after the Mexican had endured disappointing form last season.
The 23 year-old initially planned “to just build through the session” until he went off-track on his second flying lap, whilst he then made a mistake in the final sector on his final flier having initially been on course to improve his time and potentially reach Q2.
“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.”
Lawson added that tyre temperatures had been an issue for himself plus his teammate, Max Verstappen all weekend, although the reigning four-time champion managed to qualify third in comparison to the Kiwi who felt that his lost FP3 session cost him on top of his errors.
“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.”
Rain is forecast for the race which Lawson has welcomed out of pure hope just to try and “… throw some options in there for us.”
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