Liam Lawson suffered a major setback in his preparation for Australian Grand Prix qualifying on his Red Bull debut. After a poor Friday in which he finished 17th on the timesheet, Lawson hit the track early in FP3 but aborted a flying lap and limped home to the pits. The New Zealander, the only driver in the field who had never previously driven the Albert Park circuit, reported a power issue and asked the team if the problem was "major". Lawson did not receive a straight response from engineer Richard Wood and was told to return to the pits. The Kiwi obliged, but the car was quickly up on the jacks as Lawson waited in the garage hopeful of heading back on the circuit. Red Bull confirmed, when asked by RacingNews365, that "the current issue on car 30 is a PU or PU system problem on the air side. We are working to find the problem". An hour ahead of qualifying, it stated that "to the best of our knowledge the PU on car 30 is fine, the issue is fixable and we will be ready for quali". Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko has confirmed that going into qualifying, Lawson will rely on team-mate Max Verstappen's set-up. Lawson was later dumped out in Q1 to compound his horror Saturday in Melbourne.
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