ROUND 01 | Australia

F1 enters a new eraF1 enters a new era

Welcome to Melbourne

Every season, the first Grand Prix presents many unknowns – this year more than most following the biggest change in the sport's regulations in a generation. But however the opening race weekend unfolds, this isn't going to be a season where the opening races set the pattern for the rest of the year.

What is guaranteed at Melbourne's Albert Park is a huge and knowledgeable crowd, with F1 the centrepiece of a huge festival of motorsport, spread across four days. Supercars, Formula 2, Formula 3 and more demonstrations and parades than you can shake a vintage DB5 conrod at, with paddocks and display stands spread across the park.

It's also not all about F1 in Albert Park for us this weekend. After an excellent third place in the Formula 3 Championship, Mari Boya takes the step-up and contests, with Prema, his first F2 race. Instantly a winner when he joined our Driver Academy part-way through 2025, our Spanish junior has his sights set on bigger and better in 2026.

RACE STARTS IN:

days

hrs

mins

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Session Times

FP1

FP2

FP3

Quali

Race

2026 Australian Grand Prix track map base

Toggle below to highlight parts of the track.

Sectors
Turns
Straight-line Mode
Overtake Mode

Turn 9-10 is one of the fastest high-speed corners on the calendar. You need maximum downforce there and a lot of front grip as well.

Jak Crawford – Third Driver

Number of corners
14
Number of laps
58
Race distance
306.124km

AUSTRALIAN GP ESSENTIALS

THE CIRCUIT

THE GRAND PRIX

THE STRATEGY

THE FACTS

LAST TIME OUT IN AUSTRALIA

THE TRAVEL GUIDE

THE CIRCUIT

Albert Park is a curious track: not quite street circuit; not quite permanent course, but somewhere in between. At any time of year, it would create setup headaches: for the opening race of the season, it's very tricky to get right.

Like every street circuit, at the start of the weekend, Albert Park is 'green' – the track is dirty and the grip level will be low. It evolves rapidly as the F1 cars and support series sweep clean the racing line, and lay down a coating of grippy rubber in the braking areas. This makes it difficult for race engineers to understand their new cars: are they seeing an improvement in lap-time because of setup changes they've made – or are they seeing an improvement in lap time, simply because the surface is getting quicker?

The track has changed in recent years. Before the 2022 race it was resurfaced – though it still has a couple of fearsome bumps that need careful negotiation – and Turns One, Six and the penultimate corner were widened. Perhaps of greater significance, the chicane at the former T9-T10 was removed, creating a longer fast section of track, into a tighter Turn 11 (which is now Turn Nine). The consequence of this is to make the circuit higher speed with more full-throttle time.

THE GRAND PRIX

Even were it not the season-opener, the Australian Grand Prix is absolutely a bucket-list event to attend. It's one of the truly great sporting events, and generates a huge crowd that fills Albert Park across all four days.

The Australian Grand Prix is more like a motorsport festival than a standalone Grand Prix, with cars on track from 09:00 until sunset most days.

Most support series have open paddocks dotted around Albert Park. You can wander around, talk to the crews and drivers, and generally soak up the atmosphere. The F1 teams certainly do because another excellent thing about racing in Albert Park, is that most people walk into work – which isn't something you can do at most circuits. Strolling around is encouraged, as this is one of the more open-access circuits, with easy entrance to the various experiences and fan zones.

The Melbourne Walk is rightly famous as the place to get autographs as the drivers come into the paddock, and there's a great tech talk stage with everyone from camera operators to strategists taking a turn – we'll have Jak Crawford, Pedro de la Rosa and Jessica Hawkins on stage at 15:40 local on Friday.

You're likely to see the most action in the grandstands (Moss, Brabham and Jones Grandstands at Turn One for first-lap drama; Hill and Ricciardo at Turn Three most likely to see overtaking) but this is one of the rare circuits where the general admission ticket really delivers – the area known as Brocky's Hill is particularly popular, with a view of the back straight.

Albert Park doesn’t stop when it gets dark, and the race weekend features the Lakeside Festival with live music every evening. Thursday has Mallrat and Logic1000; Friday we get Basement Jaxx and Dameeeela; Rogue Traders and Rita Ora appear on Saturday, with Shouse and Grammy-nominated Duke Dumont closing the weekend out with sets on Sunday night.

THE STRATEGY

Heading into a new era of F1, complete with new tyres, there’s a tendency for the old strategy rules to be ripped up. What we can say is that, while the tyres are new, Pirelli have made the same compound allocation for the first three races of 2026 as these circuits received in 2025.

Last year doesn't provide much insight, given the rain came in and the race was (mostly) run on the Intermediate tyres. Had it been dry in 2025, the race looked like falling somewhere between one and two stops, with most drivers retaining two sets of the Hard compound C3 tyre – but not Lance or Fernando, both of whom went with one Hard set, one Medium set and four Soft sets. All three compounds were in play, with the graining that had afflicted previous years not in evidence during practice.

It's difficult to know how that will translate for 2026 – but a dry weekend in Albert Park is going to provide a lot of information. In the past, this race has thrown-up some surprise strategies, and sometimes caught teams out, but as the season-opener, it also provides valuable insight for the races ahead.

THE FACTS

1 | An event called the Australian Grand Prix has been around since the late 1920s, though it only became a round of the F1 World Championship in 1985. That F1 race was held on a street circuit in Adelaide for its first decade, and then at its current home in Albert Park since 1996, at which point it switched from a season finale to a season opener, creating the novel situation of Australian Grands Prix being consecutive events.

2 | The grandstands in Albert Park are all named after motorsport's great and good. The one name you may not recognise is the Waite Grandstand at T9-T10. It's named after Colonel Arthur Waite, winner of the inaugural 1928 Australian Grand Prix, originally called the 100 Mile Race. It was held on Phillip Island using public roads where the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit stands today. Born in Adelaide, Waite won the race driving an Austin 7 – an unsurprising choice given Herbert Austin was his father-in-law, and he was the company's distributor in Melbourne.

3 | There was an Aston Martin entry in that race. Ed Houn drove a car entered by G E. Goodall. Sadly, his race seems to have ended on the first lap.

4 | The non-championship Australian Grand Prix was held at Albert Park in 1953 and 1956. The latter event was won by Stirling Moss, with the race regularly attracting a top-class international field.

5 | While there were no Aston Martins on display in those years, Lex Davison did pilot a DBR4 to second place in the 1960 race, held at Lowood Airfield Circuit in Queensland.

6 | The final Australian Grand Prix to be held in Adelaide shares an unusual record. Damon Hill won the race, two laps ahead of second-placed Olivier Panis: F1's biggest winning margin. The record is shared with the 1969 Spanish Grand Prix, when Jackie Stewart had the same margin over Bruce McLaren.

7 | That race also holds F1's attendance record: 520,000 people came to watch.

8 | For nine months of the year in Albert Park, the park roads used for the Grand Prix circuit are open to regular traffic – though some of the corners are closed-off and specific to the race track.

9 | The 2023 race holds the record for the most red flags during a Grand Prix: three.

10 | Both Lance and Fernando made their F1 debut on this circuit – albeit separated by quite a few years. Fernando took his bow in 2001 with Minardi, Lance in 2017 with Williams.

LAST TIME OUT IN AUSTRALIA

We made our F1 Australian Grand Prix debut in 2022 – Albert Park still being off-limits in 2021 because of the global pandemic. It wasn't the best start, with both cars qualifying towards the back. Sebastian Vettel's race ended when he spun off and into the wall at Turn Four. Lance, however made decent progress to finish 12th. He employed a novel strategy of pitting on consecutive laps behind an early Safety Car, using a Medium tyre for the one obligatory lap before running the entire race on Hards.

Our three subsequent races have had considerably better rewards, with five points finishes. In 2023, Fernando was on the podium, in third, with Lance right behind him, finishing fourth. 2024 didn't quite reach those heights, but a solid sixth for Lance and eighth for Fernando, was one of our best results of the season.

Last year's wet race had its share of drama. Fernando and Lance lined up 12th and 13th and survived a torrid opening portion of the race when cars were thudding into the walls with regularity. It looked very tough for the rookies, but the conditions even challenged World Champions, Fernando spinning into the barriers on lap 24, having lost traction on the fast Turn Six kerb. Lance kept it on the black stuff, however, timed his pitstop well, and tiptoed his way through to finish P6, his best result of the season.

THE TRAVEL GUIDE

Melbourne. Blue skies sometimes, lush vegetation and a sports-mad population that pack Albert Park to the rafters all weekend.

The Victorian capital is consistently voted one of the world’s most liveable cities. It's a human-scale place, and while the tram will whisk you from the city centre out to Albert Park in a matter of minutes, if you have an hour to spare, the walk is well worth your time, particularly taking the circuitous route along the Yarra River, through the Royal Botanic Gardens.

If you're all about sport, perhaps do the detour around the 100,000-seater Melbourne Cricket Ground. Undoubtedly one of the world’s greatest sports arena, it also hosts the Australian Sports Museum. Though when F1's in town, if you want to see a match, the 'G is more likely to be resonating to the noise of Aussie Rules Football than the satisfying thunk of leather on willow.

After a day at the track, perhaps head for the coast. It's a short walk to Middle Park Beach, thereupon to enjoy cocktails with a sunset view of Port Phillip Bay and the Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron Marina. Further along the Esplanade in St Kilda, there's fine dining from the ocean terrace at the Stokehouse or the slightly more… raucous… bars of Ackland Street.

If you have a day to spare and haven’t had enough of motorsport, head to Phillip Island, home of Australia's MotoGP round. There's an excellent History of Motorsport display featuring many of the cars and bikes that have graced the circuit, a karting replica of the full-size circuit, penguins and plenty of events to wow visitors.

And if you're in Australia for a little longer, perhaps arrive in style, having driven along the Great Ocean Road from Adelaide. It's only 240km but you'll want to take your time and spend a few days, stopping at the various towns, parks and scenic lookouts along the way.

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