Round one sees Melbourne host the season opener for the first time since the aborted 2020 season. Albert Park returned to the calendar as a championship Grand Prix in 1996 having stole the rights from Adelaide and the race moving from the end of the season to the beginning of the season.
The current configuration introduced in 2022 was designed to create closer and faster racing the circuit uses mainly public roads around Albert Park Lake and drivers love the fast-flowing circuit which has seen closer racing following the pandemic.
The circuit is like another street circuit it takes time to rubber in, but making mistakes isn’t as costly here. But the biggest mistakes are punishable as some of the corners which require big braking points are lined with gravel and grass. As the drivers push to the limit in qualifying mistakes are common.
Despite being a street circuit many of its characteristics are similar to permanent circuits when compared to other street circuits, however, this, is not a modern circuit many of the run-off areas remain a mixture of grass and gravel meaning mistakes can lead to cars being beached thus leading to virtual and real safety cars during the race.
Testing suggests that McLaren is the team to beat as they have strong qualifying and race pace, but the big question is whether the teams have shown their true performances which we saw are genuine? But given the unseasonable weather in Sakhir, they will be more similar to the ones we see in Melbourne.
Albert Park, officially called Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit, normally can show which cars are good all-rounders, as you need a good combination of speed and downforce. It can be hard to overtake, but as with any street circuit, it will evolve rapidly throughout the weekend. That could make it an interesting race.
The weekend has one of the best atmospheres in many ways it feels like a European race but with an Aussie twist. The first Grand Prix at Albert Park was an F2 non-championship race in 1954 which gave the Aussies their first taste of the sport though the circuit was anti-clockwise rather than today’s clockwise circuit which was introduced forty years later when F1 moved to Melbourne from Adelaide.
Until it became a world championship Grand Prix in 1985, the race often attracted the big F1 drivers and constructors taking place in the off-season. Including World Champions Jim Clark, John Surtees, Phil Hill, Jackie Stewart, Graham Hill and Jochen Rindt, while other Timmy Mayer, Pedro Rodriguez, Piers Courage, leading teams from Cooper, Lotus, Lola, BRM, even the four-wheel drive Ferguson P99 and finally, Ferrari, racing against the local stars, McLaren, Brabham.
During this era, Brabham won the Grand Prix three times, McLaren twice, and Clark twice, the second was his last major victory before his untimely death, winning a highly entertaining battle with Chris Amon at the 1968 Australian Grand Prix at Sandown Raceway.
1985 saw Adelaide steal the race for the next decade and it was often the final race of the season, the challenging, demanding and tricky circuit that often produced races of attrition, and the whole event was very popular with drivers, teams and fans.
The 1991 race was notable for being held in extremely wet and tricky conditions and the race was eventually stopped after 14 of 82 laps and Ayrton Senna was declared the winner. The shortest race for thirty years until the 2021 Belgian Grand Prix.
1993 was a defining moment Senna’s final win and Prost’s final race. Neither would complete a race again, Senna would not finish the first three races in 1994 before his death at Imola, while Prost had retired. The drama continued the following year when Michael Schumacher secured his first championship, controversially crashing into crashing after oversteer, whether on purpose or accidentally remains unknown, into rival Damon Hill. It allowed the German to take his first championship.
Albert Park made a dramatic return and debut as a championship race, at the start Martin Brundle was launched into the air in an enormous accident. Footage of the crash, and Brundle’s subsequent rush back to the pits to take the spare car for the restart, ensured the first race in Melbourne gained widespread coverage. The race was won by Williams’s Damon Hill.
McLaren would win the following year with Mika Häkkinen leading a one-two ahead of David Coulthard. Since 1996 Albert Park has tended to favour the most dominant cars with often that season’s constructors championship winner or runner-up winning the race.
Ferrari took five wins in six years with the expectation of 2003, between 1999 and 2004. Eddie Irvine took his debut win in 1999 after both McLaren’s which went on to dominate the season. 2005 saw Ferrari’s dominance in Melbourne come to an end, Renault taking the first of two wins with Giancarlo Fisichella, while his teammate Fernando Alonso came from thirteenth to finish on the podium. Alonso would take victory the following year and made it three podiums in a row finishing third behind Lewis Hamilton in 2007.
Hamilton’s debut saw him become the first rookie to finish on the podium in eleven years on his debut. That kickstarted an incredible run of nine consecutive podium finishes from the debut, including two wins back-to-back and missing out on what would be now eight championships by a point at the end of the 2007 season, regarded as the best rookie season’s in the sport’s history.
Hamilton would win a chaotic and drama-filled 2008 race defined by multiple accidents and safety cars, leading to just seven cars finishing. The Englishman had a huge wake-up call the following season, the ‘liegate scandal’ saw the world champion disqualified.
Under the safety car Hamilton had gained third after Jarno Trulli went off, following a collision between Sebastian Vettel and Robert Kubica. Hamilton, rightly overtook the Toyota as he went off the track. But McLaren wrongly instructed Hamilton to give the place back, when called to the stewards the team lied about it after Hamilton contradicted himself with his media interviews.
In public Hamilton corroborated this, stating that the McLaren team had told him to let Trulli repass. Behind closed doors, however, Hamilton told the stewards that he had received no instruction to allow Trulli past, and had not consciously done so. The investigation
The race however was a fairytale debut for Brawn, Jenson Button leading Rubens Barrichello dominated the weekend with Button winning from pole on Brawn GP’s debut. Brawn, followed Mercedes who would buy out the team at the end of 2009, in becoming the first constructor to qualify on pole position, and then go on to win the race on their Grand Prix debut.
Button would make it back-to-back wins in mixed conditions ahead of Robert Kubica in 2010. he gambled on an early change to slick tyres under drying conditions that let him move up to second place after losing several positions at the start. His third win at Albert Park in 2012.
In the early years of the hybrid era, the race was dominated by Nico Rosberg after teammate Hamilton retired. Daniel Ricciardo scored his only podium in Melbourne but was disqualified for illegal fuel flow, Kevin Magnussen scoring his only podium as a result.
Mercedes again dominated in 2015, Hamilton leading Rosberg home in a race which saw the lowest number of starters for an opening race since Monaco in 1963 and since the IndyGate scandal in 2005. Hamilton going on to take his 34th Grand Prix win. He was followed by Rosberg, who was 1.3 seconds behind in second. Vettel was third, Felipe Massa took fourth and Felipe Nasr came in fifth.
Rosberg won again in 2016, thirty-one years after his father Keke Rosberg had won the 1985 Australian Grand Prix. Hamilton and Vettel rounded out the podium ahead of Ricciardo and Massa. 2017 saw Vettel take Ferrari’s first win in a decade at Albert Park while Hamilton equalled Senna’s pole record at Adelaide.
It was another pole record for Hamilton in 2019, eight poles at Albert Park equalling the record for most poles at one Grand Prix (8), but it was his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas who won the Grand Prix from second on the grid, while Hamilton followed behind him in second and Max Verstappen taking third.
Following the aborted 2020 race and 2021 being cancelled due to Covid, the circuit was revised making it faster and improving overtaking in 2022, saw Charles Leclerc take his first career grand slam ahead of Sergio Perez and George Russell. The changes made the circuit faster, improved safety and overtaking as well as resurfacing work.
On the race’s return, Charles Leclerc took pole ahead of both Verstappen and Sergio Perez after Q3 was cut short after Alonso crashed due to poor warm-up. Leclerc dominated the race taking his second win of the season, he maintained his lead following the safety car restart. Sainz brought out the safety car out following a poor start and tried to overtake Clark, after making a bad start he dropped to ninth in the first sector while trying to make up positions he broke too late running off and beaching his Ferrari in the gravel. Leclerc in the opening stint clearly showed the Ferrari had the pace, with Verstappen struggling on the tyres.
However, the battle between Leclerc-Verstappen was brought to a premature end when the Red Bull driver was forced to retire during the second stint on lap thirty-nine. The team once again suspected a fuel pick-up issue was the cause of his retirement.
Race & Circuit Guide
| Round | 01 of 24 | |
| Race | Formula 1 Louis Vuitton Australian Grand Prix 2024 | |
| Venue | Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit, Albert Park, Melbourne, Victoria | |
| Layout | 2021 | |
| Circuit Length | 5.303 km (3.296 mi) | |
| Laps | 58 | |
| Lap Record | Race | 01:20.260 (Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, F1-75 2022) |
| Outright | 01:15.915 (Max Verstappen, Red Bull – Honda RBPT, 2024) | |
| Most wins drivers | Michael Schumacher
Lex Davison (4) |
|
| Most wins manufacture | Ferrari (13) | |
Fast facts
- Podium-finishing constructors tend to go on to win the constructors as was the case last season while Ferrari won with a one-two, Lando Norris finished third in the McLaren. McLaren would beat Ferrari by 105 points to the championship.
- Lewis Hamilton, Kevin Magnussen and Jacques Villeneuve all scored podiums on their debuts at Albert Park. The 2007 race saw Hamilton along with Fernando Alonso and Kimi Räikkönen all finish on the podium on their first race for their new teams.
- An Australian driver has never finished on the podium at their home race since the Australian Grand Prix became a round of the World Championship in 1985. The best result from an Australian at Albert Park is fourth place. Daniel Ricciardo was disqualified from second in 2014 because of a technical infringement.
Event timetable
Session |
Local (Aus-EDT) |
UK (GMT) |
Friday |
||
| P1 | 12:30-13:30 | 01:30-02:30 |
| P2 | 16:00-17:00 | 05:00-06:00 |
Saturday |
||
| P3 | 12:30-13:30 | 01:30-02:30 |
| Qualifying | 16:00-17:00 | 05:00-06:00 |
Sunday |
||
| Race | 15:00 | 04:00 |
What happened in 2024?
Qualifying saw Max Verstappen fend off Carlos Sainz to start the season with three poles in a row by two-tenths, both his laps in Q3 were good enough for pole. Perez was just over three and a half tenths behind Verstappen but dropped to sixth following a three-place grid drop for impeding the Haas of Nico Hulkenberg in Q1. Norris was fourth, the McLaren driver going four hundredths behind Perez and ahead of Leclerc by over a tenth.
Sainz took a dominant win ahead of Ferrari teammate Leclerc winning the Australian Grand Prix by two-tenths in the closest finishes this season. Sainz swept past Verstappen on lap two at the Clark Chicane, as the three-time champion struggled with brake failure before retiring on lap four.
The Spaniard then controlled the race and set himself up for victory as he passed Leclerc and Lando Norris at the pit stop seizing control. Sainz had in Singapore last year dined Verstappen a record bringing a run of wins and is the only driver other than the world champion to win since May last year.
His win came two weeks after undergoing appendix surgery, and took full advantage of the opportunity as he calmly controlled the race from the front to stay clear of Leclerc. But despite downplaying expectations going into the weekend, he has strung together a strong weekend and was second on the grid. It denied Verstappen from equalling his record of ten Grand Prix in a row.
Norris was third finishing three and a half seconds behind Leclerc and comfortably ahead of his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri, as the team continued their strong start in what is a close midfield battle. Earlier in the race, the team had instructed Piastri to allow Norris to pass, but then the Melbourne-born driver.
Pole Position |
Max Verstappen Red Bull – Honda RBPT 01:15.915 |
|||||
Podium |
||||||
Po |
Name |
Nat |
Team |
Time |
Points |
|
| 1 | Carlos Sainz | ESP | Ferrari | 01:20:26.843 | 25 | |
| 2 | Charles Leclerc | MON | Ferrari | +00:02.366 | 19 | |
| 3 | Lando Norris | GBR | McLaren – Mercedes | +00:05.904 | 15 | |
| Fastest Lap | Charles Leclerc | MON | Ferrari | 01:19.813 | 1 | |
What to watch for?
Following testing many are expecting McLaren go into the new season as the team to beat, though we didn’t see what they were really capable off during testing many have said they look to be slightly ahead of Ferrari. Though they are expected to be the two leading teams going into this season it still only testing.
Based on the analysis of testing, Lando Norris would have comfortably won the ‘Bahrain Grand Prix’ had it been held then by on average half a second faster. It would have also been a one-two with Piastri being two-tenth a lap faster having a similar margin during his stint over Russell. I still think Norris has the slight edge over Oscar Piastri, though that would be a huge story if Piastri was the first Australian to win the race as a world championship round and the first since 1980.
But going into this season, while it looks like McLaren are the favourites, it is not a big margin as Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes. This is also the first race on a street circuit, this is not a modern street circuit there are run-off areas but they are mainly grass and gravel. that means if cars become beached or go off, that will lead to virtual or real safety cars.
Norris may be the favourite, but Ferrari have won two of the last three races following Covid and Lewis Hamilton will look to what happened on his debut. Kimi Raikkonen who finished eighteen seconds ahead of him, won on his Ferrari debut and would beat Hamilton by a point to the championship. Red Bull I think is a bit of a mystery they didn’t really in my view show much in terms of performance.
But given the fact that this is the first race we don’t know if Red Bull has been holding back in testing, or any team for that matter. I think based on what I have seen they are not as strong as they were at the beginning of last season, they however will be in the mix.
Pirelli has gone one step softer on the tyres this season, which could add a bit more variables in terms of strategy into the race. Normally, the weather is stable in late summer early autumn sunshine, but we do occasionally see mixed conditions which can catch drivers out.
The midfield going into this season to me feels like everyone outside the top four teams, as I think they all have the potential to get at least into Q2 without dramas caused by accidents and red flags. Williams have been seen ‘as the most improved team’ from what we saw in Sakhir, but they might not be there in a real situation they are making improvements but is it enough to consistently.
2024 vs 2023 Race Data
P1 Fastest |
P2 Fastest |
P3 Fastest |
Q1 Fastest |
Q2 Fastest |
Q3 Fastest |
Race Time |
Fastest Lap |
|
2024 |
01:18.564 | 01:17.277 | 01:16.714 | 01:16.731 | 01:16.189 | 01:15.915 | 01:20:26.843 | 01:19.813 |
Diff |
-00.226 | -01.609 | -00.851 | -00.653 | -00.867 | -00.817 | -01:12:12.732 | -00.422 |
2023 |
01:18.790 | 01:18.886 | 01:17.565 | 01:17.384 | 01:17.056 | 01:16.732 | 02:32:38.371 | 01:20.235 |
2024 Lap time comparison
FP1 |
FP2 |
FP3 |
Q1 |
Q2 |
Q3 |
Race |
|||||||||
Team |
Fastest Time |
Gap |
Fastest Time |
Gap |
Fastest Time |
Gap |
Fastest Time |
Gap |
Fastest Time |
Gap |
Fastest Time |
Gap |
Race. Time |
Gap |
Inter |
Mercedes |
01:18.597 | +00.033 | 01:17.951 | +00.674 | 01:16.791 | +00.092 | 01:17.062 | +00.331 | 01:16.901 | +00.514 | 01:16.572 | +00.657 | 01:18:04.734 | + 1 Lap | Retired |
Red Bull |
01:18.582 | +00.018 | 01:17.658 | +00.381 | 01:16.734 | +00.020 | 01:16.805 | +00.074 | 01:16.387 | +00.198 | 01:15.915 | +00.000 | 01:21:23.152 | +00:56.309 | +00:20.866 |
Ferrari |
01:18.599 | +00.035 | 01:17.277 | +00.000 | 01:16.714 | +00.000 | 01:16.731 | +00.000 | 01:16.189 | +00.000 | 01:16.185 | +00.270 | 01:20:26.843 | +00:00.000 | +00.000 |
McLaren |
01:18.564 | +00.000 | 01:18.077 | +00.800 | 01:17.087 | +00.373 | 01:17.369 | +00.638 | 01:16.601 | +00.412 | 01:16.315 | +00.400 | 01:20:32.747 | +00:05.904 | +00:03.538 |
Aston Martin |
01:18.667 | +00.103 | 01:17.822 | +00.545 | 01:16.997 | +00.283 | 01:16.991 | +00.260 | 01:16.710 | +00.521 | 01:17.072 | +01.157 | 01:21:23.152 | +00:56.309 | +00:36.919 |
RB |
01:19.274 | +00.710 | 01:18.188 | +00.911 | 01:17.673 | +00.959 | 01:17.356 | +00.625 | 01:16.791 | +00.602 | 01:16.788 | +00.873 | 01:22.02.444 | +01:35.6010 | +00:02.379 |
Alpine |
01:19.561 | +00.997 | 01:18.585 | +01.414 | 01:17.920 | +01.206 | 01:17.617 | +00.886 | 01:17.697 | +01.508 | N/A | 01:21:07.796 | + 1 Lap | +00:29.445 | |
Haas |
01:19.604 | +00.925 | 01:18.702 | +01.425 | 01:17.941 | +01.227 | 01:17.709 | +00.978 | 01:17.427 | +01.238 | N/A | 01:22:11.396 | +01:44.553 | +00:03.561 | |
Alfa Romeo |
01:19.989 | +01.425 | 01:18.585 | +01.144 | 01:17.941 | +01.038 | 01:17.543 | +00.812 | 01:17.340 | +01.151 | N/A | +00.000 | 01:21:09.169 | + 1 Lap | +00:01.373 |
Williams |
01:19.519 | +00.879 | 01:18.578 | +01.257 | 01:17.759 | +01.045 | 01:17.130 | +00.399 | 01:17.167 | +00.978 | N/A | +00.000 | 01:20:31.852 | + 1 Lap | +00:00.928 |
Tyres
White Hard (C3) |
Yellow Medium (C4) |
Red Soft (C5) |
