The plot lines for the start of the 2025 Formula One season are many and varied and whilst Lewis Hamilton has been grabbing the headlines as he debut’s for Ferrari, the new breed of rookies will provide fascinating story lines as the year gets under way.
The prize for the rookie beating his senior team mate goes to reigning F2 champion, Kick Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto, who scraped out of the first qualifying session and will start P15 whilst experienced team mate Nico Hulkenberg will start the race P17.
Oliver Bearman’s nightmare weekend with Haas F1 continued with the British driver having completed just 13 laps in Melbourne before qualifying began. On his out lap as the pit lane lights went green, Bearman could not select fourth gear and was told to pit immediately.
Liam Lawson admits his mistakes
Yet all eyes were on Liam Lawson who somewhat controversially replaced Sergio Perez alongside Max Verstapen since the end of last season. Lawson was beaten 6-0 win qualifying by Tsunoda in 2024 and his run of failing to qualify ahead of his team mate continued in Melbourne.
The New Zealander put in three push attempts in Q1, but the run plan together with mistakes Lawson made meant he was eliminated from the first session and will start the Grand Prix in P18. “We expected the start of qualifying to be tough. To be honest, the first laps were expected to be off [the pace] and then we were just planning on building through the session,” Lawson revealed in the media pen.
“But obviously going off the second lap put everything out of the order a bit. “The last lap was good until the last sector, where I had a big drop. Obviously missing P3 obviously doesn’t help any of us, but I shouldn’t be going off in quali,” he admitted shouldering the blame for his poor position on the grid for tomorrow’s Grand Prix.
When Lawson was given the nod ahead of Yuki Tsunoda, now in his fifth season racing in Formula One, a number of experienced commentators questioned the wisdom of the Red Bull decision. To make matters worse Tsunoda hauled his Racing Bull into P5 ahead of both the Ferrari’s, Pierre Gasly and the Wiliams pair who rounded out the top ten.
“Sergio is laughing his head off”
Such a disastrous start to his first full time F1 campaign will be a blow to the New Zealand driver who faces the stiffest test of all in being the team mate of world champion Max Verstappen. The irony of Lawsons’s disastrous start to the weekend was not lost on a number of key paddock figures.
In his notebook, Sky F1’s Ted Kravitz began his round up of the day for Red Bull Racing as follows. “Max Verstappen P3; Liam Lawson P18 – and lets do Liam Lawson first of all. To be fair to him he was up against it with no preparation in practice 3 after a problem on the power unit – a pneumatic problem – so he didn’t get any preparation – did a 17.0 when others the fastest laps were around the 1 minute 16/15 point.”
Lawson made mistakes on his final two push laps and Kravitz revealed,”I’ve written here in my notebook, ‘somewhere in Guadalajara, Mexico a man called Segrio is laughing his head off’. Sergio might well feel today that he would have done better than P18…..,” suggested the veteran F1 pit lane reporter.
“You can only hope for Lawson’s sake and I guess Red Bull Racing’s designs on a constructors’ championship that this is not a pattern thats going to be repeated,” Kravitz concluded. Lawson did have the specification of nose cone used in pre-season testing, while Verstappen was given the only revised version available for this weekend, yet even that was no excuse and the pressure is now on as the comparisons between his results and Checo’s from last year will inevitably be made.
Tsunoda stunning response to being overlooked
Meanwhile, Yuki Tsunoda, who was overlooked in favour of Lawson for the Red Bull drive, was ecstatic with the “magic” lap which took him to P5. He finished just two tenths slower than Vertsappen with a blistering final run in the dying moments of the session.
The Racing Bulls are definitely on the up and this was Yuki’s best qualifying position since his P3 in Brazil last season. “I can say definitely it was a magic lap,” he told F1.com. “I think I was able to put it all together as well.
“The quality of lap was the best out of previous runs throughout the week so far. But I also got a bit of help from Lando until Turn 9 with the tow,” admitted the Japanese driver.
Whilst admitting the final lap time “came out of nowhere,” Yuki claimed the pace of the car was consistently good all weekend which gave him the confidence going into qualifying. Huge credit to the team, they worked really hard over the off-season and I’m happy now.”
Piastri vote of confidence not what it seemed
Racing Bulls set up for wet weather
Something of a surprise was the fact that Tsunoda revealed the team has optimised the car for the wet weather forecast tomorrow. This makes his qualm uneven more spectacular as he was running a higher downforce configuration than many of his rivals.
“Even in rain condition, we are kind of already prepared [for it],” he said. “We made a compromise with set-up as well. So even in rain condition I’m feeling pretty confident. I’m excited for tomorrow but at the same time it’s going to be tricky.”
After today, the odds of Red Bull yet again making a midi-season switch amongst its drivers have risen, with Lawson now under significant pressure to prove he was worth the promotion alongside Max.
Tsunoda’s team mate, rookie Isaac Hadjar, had a respectable day finishing just outside the top ten and will start behind Carlos Sainz in P11.
Marko rages against rule change
McLaren boss concerned despite 1-2 in qualifying
The speculation over which team is quickest at the start of 2025 is now finished as Formula One finally ran its first competitive on track session with qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix. As most F1 analysts predicted McLaren were the class of the field claiming a 1-2 grid start with Lando Norris on pole just 0.084s ahead of his Australian team mate.
Yet after the first runs in qualifying three, Piastri and Norris had it all to do with Max Verstappen ominously leading the way. Yet the McLaren pair who ran early for their final push lap in the session, corrected their errors from the first runs and stormed to the head of the field where they remained as the chequered flag fell to end the session.
Verstappen made an error at turn 11 losing a couple of tenths which would have put him in the McLaren mix, and given his new team mate couldn’t even make it out of the first qualifying session, his value to Red Bull was once again front and centre…. READ MORE
16.06.2023. Formula 1 World Championship, Rd 9, Canadian Grand Prix, Montreal, Canada, Practice Day.
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With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
