Liam Lawson, Red Bull, Albert Park, 2025

New Red Bull driver Liam Lawson admitted he was “too slow” on the first day of practice for the new season in Australia.

He ended Friday’s second session 17th out of the 19 drivers who set times. Oliver Bearman was unable to participate after damaging his Haas in a crash during the opening session.

Although Lawson avoided the barriers, his quickest time on the soft tyres was over half a second slower than team mate Max Verstappen managed. However Verstappen’s session was not especially smooth as he had to repeatedly back out of attempts to start a flying lap due to traffic.

Lawson said he was “comfortable, just too slow” on his first day in the new RB21 at a grand prix weekend.

“We have a lot of work to do overnight,” he told the official F1 channel. “Obviously, day one on a new track [for me], we were expecting to have some work to do, but probably not this much. We’ll obviously work on it overnight and then try and improve it for tomorrow.”

He admitted it was “not really” clear what they need to do to improve. “I think if we knew that we’d know how to fix it as well.

“In general, just grip when we need to use it on that short run. But then, in general, our long-run pace was slow as well. Obviously we’ll work on it.”

Of the six drivers beginning their first full seasons in Melbourne this weekend, Isack Hadjar occupied the highest position in Friday’s running, finishing sixth. Jack Doohan was 14th for Alpine and Mercedes’ Andrea Kimi Antonelli was 16th, six-thousandths of a second ahead of Lawson. Behind him were Gabriel Bortoleto in his Sauber and Bearman.

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