Formula One Vault

PRIXVIEW – Australian Grand Prix

Round three takes F1 down under to Melbourne and the start of Asia–Pacific leg over the next month. Melbourne is one of the highlights of the opening round of the season as we move into the Easter break at a circuit which could be described as a hybrid between a permeant and street in Albert Park.

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.

The race normal 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. This means that when we get into qualifying the battle to make it into Q3 and for pole can be close, as the circuit is rubbered in.

Drivers love the nature of Albert Park, officially the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit because it is quite fast and relatively easy to drive, drivers having commented that the consistent placement of corners allows them to easily learn the circuit and achieve competitive times. It is also a circuit with medium to high-speed characteristics more commonly associated with permeant circuits.

Its one of the better older street circuits as the fact the walls are slightly further away and this gives the drivers a little bit more room to try and overtake. The modern wide areas of tarmac are gravel and grass meaning compared to more modern street circuits there are more run off areas allowing drivers to take victory.

Albert Park, normal 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 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.

This involvement dropped off but the 1980 Grand Prix was a combined but still non-championship race won by world champion Alan Jones and Williams.

1985 saw the race officially included in the world championship, and expect during the pandemic has been held annually. The first ten years saw it often the final race in Adelaide, a 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.

Two years later it would mark the end of an era, 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.

Albert Park made its dramatic debut as a world championship race in 1996, 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.

If Max Verstappen and Red Bull were to win this weekend with another one-two, it would firmly make them the statical favourite for the title, as every time a team has finished one-two in Melbourne, the team has won driver and constructors championship. And that’s not happened once or twice, it’s happened eight times!

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.

But he would put that right the following year, kicking of a championship-winning season with victory ahead of his Nick Heifield. In a chaotic and drama-filled race which only saw seven cars finish the race, which saw multiple crashes and safety cars. But Hamilton was cool finding himself leading for all but five laps

The Englishman found himself at the centre of controversy in what became known as the ‘Liegate scandal’ after Hamilton had allowed Jarno Trulli to retake third after he went wide under the safety car. McLaren made a mistake and Trulli was first given a penalty.

However, Trulli was eventually re-instated to his third finishing position and Hamilton was disqualified for misleading stewards during their investigation.  Meanwhile, Jenson Button and 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.

The beginning of the hybrid era in 2014 saw the beginning of Mercedes’s dominance for much of the hybrid era. Nico Rosberg took victory as Hamilton retired, but the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo found himself disqualified for illegal fuel flow. Hamilton bounced back with a commanding victory the following season, after taking the lead on the opening lap. He then only lost the lead through the pit stops before regaining it when Rosberg stopped.

Rosberg won again in 2016, but the race was seen of one a dramatic accidents when Alonso ran his McLaren into the back of Esteban Gutiérrez, being lifted into the air at 300 km/h (190 mph) and hitting the left-hand barrier before subsequently rolling over several times before coming to rest upside-down against the barrier at turn three, experiencing a peak force of 46G.

Vettel returned Ferrari to the top step of the podium for the first time in a decade, after passing Hamilton and new teammate Valtteri Bottas. Vettel made it back-to-back wins in 2018 when he remained ahead of Hamilton in the pit stop phase, while Renault scored its first double podium since 2011.

Race & Circuit Guide

Fast facts

• 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.
• 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.
• The lowest grid slot a Grand Prix at Albert Park has been won from is 11th. David Coulthard achieved this in 2003, with what would be his final victory in F1.
• Eddie Irvine is the only driver to have celebrated his maiden F1 victory at this track. He won his first Grand Prix with Ferrari here in 1999.
• The 2012 Australian Grand Prix was the first F1 race to feature six active World Champions competing in it.

Event timetable

What happened in 2023?

Max Verstappen beat both Mercedes to pole in changeable conditions and technical issues with a 16.732, which put him ahead of both Mercedes by a quarter of a second with George Russell a nearly two-hundredths faster than Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton meanwhile was third beating Alonso by a quarter of a hundredth, he pipped the Aston Martin on his final run.

The surprise early casualty of Q1 was Perez, the Mexican failed to set a lap after repeating his errors in FP1 and FP3. He skated across the gravel but as he turned right and tried to manoeuvre his way out he became stuck at the edge next to a muddy access road close to the barrier, where the Mexican driver fumed he had suffered the “same issue” as earlier in the weekend.

Also out in Q1 was Melbourne-born Oscar Piastri, the McLaren driver missing out by four hundredths.

Verstappen took victory by almost two-tenths, but the chaotic race created a sprint to the finish which didn’t show how dominant he had been throughout despite two red flags. The first red flag was caused by Alex Albon crashing out solo and putting debris and gravel across the road. At the first restart, Hamilton did hold the lead having passed the Red Bull early on, but Verstappen was soon passing using the DRS and then maintained the lead.

Fernando Alonso was third that was despite a collision on the restart with two laps to go. The controversy remaining many of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the FIA decided to restore the order from before the restart because the cars had not made it far enough around the track before for the new classification to be confirmed before the red flag came out.

The final restart putting Verstappen against Hamilton a direct comparison to Abu Dhabi in 2021, triggering memories of that one-lap fight for the championship. Ironically, that desire led to the final, bizarre, and confusing climax, and a race that did end under a safety car.

At that restart, it was the Mercedes who got the better start on the run to Brabham before Verstappen reacted quickly enough to cut off the Mercedes, holding the lead into the first corner. However, any further sparring between the pair was prevented as chaos ensued behind them after Sainz ran into compatriot Alonso.

What to watch for?

The big question going into this weekend is whether Red Bull can continue their dominance on track with Max Verstappen starting the season in the Middle East with two commanding wins. Albert Park is another street circuit, not as high speed as Jeddah, but the circuit is still a fast-flowing circuit around the park. I think Melbourne is similar to Monza in its location and while not as fast it’s one of the faster street circuits.

The battle behind as we seen in the first two races behind Red Bull is even closer, but still the question remains can the likes of Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren close that gap between them and Red Bull? This weekend is the first race of the year to take place around the normal 3pm start. While the weather is usually late summer / early autumn there have been races and qualifying’s interrupted by heavy rain.

Mercedes have over the last decade had a bit of a weaker car at street circuits but since the regulation change has been better at street circuits. But we know the race for second behind Red Bull is tight once again, Ferrari and McLaren look to be not far behind as both have addressed the problems which have held them back at the start of the past two seasons.

Lewis Hamilton is a serial podium finisher in Melbourne as we know he is one to watch at street circuits and despite the teams difficulties did manage fourth in 2022 behind teammate George Russell. It’s a circuit where you need to build confidence because this is an older circuit we don’t have the huge tarmac run off and the grass and gravel where cars can be beached.

This is Oscar Piastri and Daniel Ricciardo’s home race, Australian drivers have had mixed results and never won the race in the world championship era. Piastri looks in the best position to get a good result this weekend, the McLaren looks a stronger car than this time last season.

This circuit rewards those who can go to the limit as we know street circuits get faster and faster throughout the weekend. Pirelli has gone a step softer on tyres this year, that’s because the race because of safety cars can lead to multiple stops as that’s the best time to stop.

The strategy of the stops is going to be key because it’s where advantages can be gained and lost as we often say, positions can be won and lost if the teams aren’t flexible enough.

2023 vs 2022 Race Data

2023 Lap time comparison

Tyres