The world champions looked struggling in Melbourne. His best time was set to medium tires – he took three bites and ended the soft-tire qualifying simulation run when he halted three turns and ran a big run at the exit.
Verstappen said: “There was no perfect balance and there were no major issues or major issues, but somehow the grip wasn’t alive.
“It’ll be a bit difficult to fix, but there’s nothing I wasn’t expecting when I arrived here, so it’s not an aggressive or negative surprise at the pace we’re showing.”
Verstappen came to Melbourne and was hoping that McLaren would not be able to match the raw pace, but the rain for the race on Sunday is predicted.
Sauber’s Nico Halkenberg was eighth ahead of Aston Martin and George Russell’s Mercedes from Lance Stroll.
Later in the session, in the race simulation run, when the tire and fuel weights were corrected, Leclerc was the fastest and appeared to smudge before Norris, followed by Hamilton, Piastri, Russell and Verstappen.
Impressed by setting the second fastest time in the first session, Williams driver Carlos Signe mixed it near the top team in race fuel, averaging Leclair and Hamilton’s pace averages.
Mercedes raced on hard tyres and other top teams used media, so it’s impossible to compare the averages. Russell was much faster than his rookie teammate Andrea Kimmi Antoneri.
Russell said Mercedes is competitive with medium and hard tires, but is not competitive with the soft compounds used in qualifying.
“It was a real rising day,” he said. “Every time I put on medium or hard tyres, I was in the top two. Then I put on soft and it wasn’t that fast. Obviously the car has a little bit of pace and you need to understand the tyres.”
