Max Verstappen’s third-place start at the Australian Grand Prix “will be ideal” in the event of rain at Albert Park on Sunday.

That is the claim of Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko, who has revealed that Red Bull have struggled with tyre overheating in the final sector throughout the weekend in Melbourne.

Helmut Marko: Red Bull RB21 overheating tyres in last sector

After an underwhelming showing in pre-season testing in Bahrain last month, the Red Bull RB21 car was again off the pace throughout Friday practice in Australia with Verstappen classified fifth and seventh in FP1 and FP2 respectively.

However, the reigning four-time World Champion produced an impressive lap to secure third on the grid behind the dominant McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

Speaking after qualifying, Marko declared that Red Bull are “very satisfied” with the result with Verstappen neck and neck with Norris in the fight for pole position until his tyres struggled in the traction-heavy final sector.

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And with rain expected on Sunday, he believes Verstappen is in the perfect place to capitalise on any uncertainty on race day.

He told Sky Germany: “We are very satisfied and we were on a par with Norris until Turn 11 and then our tyres no longer played ball.

“We’ve had this problem all weekend, but it’s got better and better. But that’s the reason why it wasn’t enough for a better position.

“If it rains tomorrow as well, then this starting position will be ideal.”

Marko’s comments come after Verstappen admitted to being “surprised” to qualify inside the top three on the grid after struggling on Friday, revealing that he felt “[at] one” with the RB21 on track in qualifying.

Appearing in the post-qualifying press conference, he said: “We had a bit of a tough start [to the weekend].

“I think his has never really been a good track to us as well, so it took a bit of time to understand and how we can improve the situation and we did that today.

“Honestly, I’m quite surprised to be sitting here after yesterday. I felt confident. I felt one with the car.

“Of course, clearly, we’re still lacking a bit of pace but, overall I’m happy with the laps in qualifying, trying to really extract everything.

“Tyres are quite sensitive around here as well, with all these high speed corners, but I’m happy to be here.”

Asked what he and Red Bull had changed overnight, he said: “Just trying to fine tune balance things and the car just came alive a little bit more.

“Yesterday was, in general, quite okay to drive it, just too slow.

“Today, it was a little bit faster but clearly still not fast enough. But still, to be ahead of Ferrari and Mercedes, I think is good for us here.”

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Meanwhile, Verstappen’s new team-mate Liam Lawson fell in Q1 in a disappointing start to his first full season in F1.

Lawson failed to record a lap in Saturday’s final practice session after his Red Bull developed an engine issue before the New Zealander could only manage 18th in Q1, ahead only of the Haas’s of Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman, who failed to set a time.

Speaking to Sky F1 after the session, Lawson revealed that he was around 0.5s up on his previous lap before a mistake-ridden end to his final Q1 effort as his tyres also faded in the final series of corners.

He said: “We expected the start of quali to be tough, to be honest.

“The first laps, we expected to be off [the pace], and then we were just planning on building through the session, but obviously going off on that second lap put everything out of order a bit.

“Then the last lap was good, honestly, just until the last sector where I just had a big drop.

“Missing P3 obviously doesn’t help any of this, but I shouldn’t be going off in quali.

“Before Turn 9, we were about half a second up. Then, obviously, we would have kept improving, but I already had a snap through Turns 9 and 10.

“I think the tyres were already starting to drop there, so that’s something we’ve just been battling this weekend. Obviously it’s something that we missed practicing in FP3.

“We definitely overheated at the end of the lap, but I don’t… obviously it’s something we’ll look into it. Would it have helped doing FP3?

“I think today was a sort of quali prep day. Everybody was using soft tyres this morning. I think we had the car in a good window. Honestly, it wasn’t bad. And the lap we were on was perfectly fine.

“I just had a snap through the high speed. I think that overheated the tyres, and then the last sector was basically gone from there.”

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