Verstappen happy with third as Melbourne ‘has never been a good track for us’ · RaceFans

Max Verstappen was pleased to qualify in third place despite taking provisional pole position with his first run in Q3.

The Red Bull driver was six tenths of a second off the pace on Friday, but found a second in final practice. He was close to the McLaren drivers throughout qualifying, and briefly looked set to pull off a surprise in Q3 when Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri made mistakes on their first runs.

However clean laps by the McLaren pair at the end of the session left Verstappen third, 0.385 seconds off pole position. Despite having taken pole position for the last two Australian Grands Prix, Verstappen said he was satisfied with the result at a track which hasn’t always suited Red Bull’s car.

“We had a bit of a tough start,” said Verstappen. “This has never really been a good track for us so it took a bit of time to understand how we could improve the situation. We did that today.

“Honestly, I’m quite surprised to be sitting here after yesterday. I felt confident, I felt one with the car, but clearly, we were lacking a bit of pace.”

Verstappen’s new team mate Liam Lawson dropped out in the first round of qualifying after sliding off-track at the end of the lap. Verstappen said the tyre drop-off over the course of a lap was a key challenge.

“Overall, I’m happy with the laps in qualifying,” he said. “I tried to really extract everything. The tyres are quite sensitive around here, with all these high-speed corners, but I’m happy to be here.”

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He said Red Bull’s car “came alive a little more” thanks to the changes they made overnight.

“Yesterday it was, in general, quite okay to drive, just too slow. Today it was a little faster.

“But clearly still not fast enough. Still, to be ahead of Ferrari and Mercedes here is good for us.”

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