Red Bull suffer fresh setback on eve of Australian Grand Prix

Red Bull have suffered a major setback on the eve of their first race of the 2025 Formula 1 season.

Liam Lawson's first day of the season went about as poorly as he could've imagined, finishing over a second off the pace in FP1 and FP2 as he struggled to handle his Red Bull.

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The Kiwi could only put his car 16th and 17th on the timing boards in those two sessions, but his Saturday started on an even worse note in the final practice period of the weekend.

It didn't take long after leaving the pitlane for Lawson to realise that something was wrong with his car, coming onto his radio to ask if there was an issue with his power deployment.

READ MORE: Bearman causes ANOTHER red flag in Australian GP nightmare

He was immediately told to bring the car back to the pits, his race engineer not giving him any more details when asked if the issue was likely to be serious – but later reporting appeared to hint that there was an issue with his power unit.

In the event, Lawson wasn't able to get out of the pits for the rest of the hour's running, leaving him and Ollie Bearman as the only two drivers with no lap time in the final practice before Saturday's qualifying.

Bearman's problem wasn't a technical one as Lawson's was, but was in fact the result of his second off-track excursion in as many days.

Having missed all of FP2 after damaging his car in a high-speed crash on Friday, the Haas newbie dipped a wheel onto the grass on his very first flying lap of the day, sending him spinning into the gravel and ending his session.

Lawson and Red Bull's issues carried on in qualifying as although Verstappen managed to record the third fastest time, the New Zealander was knocked out in Q1 and will line up in 18th for lights out on Sunday.

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