It was a day of mixed emotions for Red Bull Racing during qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix, with one car in the top three and one out in Q1.
There were concerns over Red Bull's standing amongst the top teams entering the weekend, with the first day of practice seeing both Max Verstappen and Liam Lawson sitting outside ideal positions.
However, changes were made to the cars overnight in hopes of putting in strong qualifying drives.
After struggling with tyre grip in the first two practice sessions, Verstappen was able to show his quality to qualify P3. His lap time came 0.385 seconds behind pole setter Lando Norris' best lap of 1:15.096.
The Australian Grand Prix is expected to be a wet race, which could be ideal conditions for Verstappen, and starting on the second row means he has every chance of battling for a podium in the opening race of the season.
Speaking after qualifying, Verstappen commented: "It was good. Yesterday was quite tough, so for us to be in P3 today, I'll take that."
"The quali laps were very exciting, a lot of good grip around here and some fast corners. It's always very fun in an F1 car."
Speaking on the tyres, Verstappen commented: "It was quite tough in qualifying."
He concluded: "I don't how the others felt, but for me it never felt like we nailed that bit and in the end; the gap was quite big so in the end it wouldn't have mattered in terms of position."
It has been a difficult first weekend for Liam Lawson with Red Bull, with the 23-year-old lacking confidence in his car and struggling for pace.
An issue with his car also saw him limited to just two laps in Free Practice 3, making it difficult for him to get prepared for qualifying.
Lawson was on a good flying lap when a lock-up forced him off onto the grass and ended his hopes of progressing into Q2.
Starting P18, the New Zealander will just be ahead of the Haas' of Esteban Ocon and Ollie Bearman.
"We expected the start of quali to be tough, so to be honest, the first laps were expected to be off, and we were just planning on building through the session."
"Going off on that second lap sort of put everything out of order a bit. Then, the last lap was good just until the last sector, where I had a big drop. Missing FP3 doesn't help any of us, but I also shouldn't be going off in quali."
He added: "Before turn nine, we were about half a second up, and we kept improving. But, I already had a snap through nine, I think tyres were starting to drop there so we've just been battling this weekend and it's something we missed practising in FP3."
Answering a question on what he hopes can be done for the race tomorrow, Lawson said: "I haven't done much high fuel running. We feel we made a step with the car today, regardless of this, and obviously, Max is in a good position. The weather tomorrow is variable, so we'll see."
