With the lights off on Sunday at the Australian Grand Prix to begin the 2025 Formula One season, F1 driver champion Max Verstappen's defending will likely be third behind the two biggest challengers, Randororis and Oscar Piastri.
The four-time champions are not expecting a “miracle” on Sunday despite being third on Saturday.
“I'm not expecting any miracles, but I think it's fine.” Verstappen said when asked About Race Past for RB21 after the qualifying round. “Not on the same level [as Norris and Piastri]But I will do my best and see what happens tomorrow. ”
Verstappen and teammate Liam Lawson looked a little behind in Saturday's qualifying session as Verstappen went down FP2 on P7. But as we've seen many times in his career, the Red Bull driver placed himself firmly in the mix for pole position during qualifying, topped with timing sheets at various times throughout the session.
However, when the checkered flag last flew, Verstappen was in the second row behind two McLaren drivers. Still, Verstappen pointed out that the car “has been a little more alive” on Saturday for him.
“We got off to a slightly tough start. This wasn't a really good track for us, so it took us a little time to figure out how to improve the situation. We did that today,” Verstappen said. “To be honest, I'm very surprised that I've been sitting here since yesterday. I was confident and felt one in the car, but obviously we were a little under-pace.
“Overall, I'm happy with the qualifying lap. I really tried to extract everything. The tires are very sensitive around here and there are all these high speed corners, but I'm happy to be here,” continued Verstappen.
“The car has lived a little more. Yesterday, it was generally very ok to drive, too late. Today it was a little faster, but obviously not fast enough.
“Even so, it's good for us to be ahead of Ferrari and Mercedes here.”
As stated in his comments, the Australian Grand Prix has always been not kind to Verstappen. Throughout his Formula One career, he has retired more on Australia (3) than on the podium (2).
I'll see if it changes to Sunday.
