World champion Max Verstappen admitted he was "surprised" after qualifying third fastest for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix Saturday, but said he was feeling increasingly confident.

The Red Bull driver struggled with grip on Friday, finishing seventh in second practice as he embarked on his bid to become only the second driver after Michael Schumacher to win five straight world crowns.

But his engineers appeared to have fixed the problem, with the Dutchman on the second row behind McLaren pair Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

"We had a bit of a tough start," he said in the post-qualifying press conference for the top three drivers. 

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

"I'm quite surprised to be sitting here after yesterday," he added. 

"I felt confident. I felt one with the car. Of course, clearly it was lacking a bit of pace, but overall, happy with the laps in qualifying."

While he was upbeat, his rookie teammate Liam Lawson, who replaced the underperforming Sergio Perez, failed to get out of Q1.

The New Zealander looked set to clock a decent time, but ran wide at turn 15 and had to abort the lap, ending the day in 18th.

"The last lap was good until the last sector, where I had a big drop," he told reporters. 

"Obviously missing P3 doesn't help any of us, I shouldn't be going off in quali.

"Max is in a good position so we definitely made a step and obviously the weather tomorrow is variable so let's see," he added.