boss has insisted that Liam Lawson's Red Bull seat should have been handed to Racing Bulls star Yuki Tsunoda. Lawson was chosen in December to replace Mexican ace Sergio Perez as Max Verstappen's 2025 team-mate, with Tsunoda forced to stay put at Red Bull's junior team.

Lawson had never had a full-time F1 seat ahead of this campaign but impressed after taking over from Daniel Ricciardo last year. The 23-year-old was team-mates with Tsunoda for the final six races in 2024 when Racing Bulls were known as RB. He also impressed when filling in for Ricciardo for five races in 2023.

Lawson endured a tough first couple of days in Melbourne ahead of the Australian Grand Prix as he .

Tsunoda, meanwhile, produced a stellar performance as he clocked the fifth fastest time in Q3 to secure himself a third-row start on Sunday.

And following the qualifying session, Brown told : "I think it's going to be a very exciting year. Yuki did a great job, [he's] probably the guy that should be in the Red Bull if you look at how he's performed. But they seem to make some strange driver choices."

Lawson missed the third free practice session on Saturday morning due to a turbo issue and was then unable to progress beyond Q1 after aborting his final lap.

And following his disappointing display Down Under, the New Zealander explained: "We overheated the tyres at the end of the lap.

"Honestly, it wasn't bad, and the lap we were on was perfectly fine. I just had a snap through the high-speed [of Turn 10] and I think it overheated the tyres. And the last sector was basically gone.

"It is hard to know but we were on a good lap. I think it would have been well in Q2, but we made a big step today, or at least Max did with the car. It was in a bit of a window which was positive."

He added: "Obviously for me in not doing the laps [in FP3] was pretty tough, and it was pretty costly in not doing much quali prep for the day.

"I don't think it is car-specific. It is not like this car is way harder to drive and that is why I made mistakes. It is just a tough track and a lack of driving and then being stupid."