Australian Grand Prix Facts & Stats

Wednesday, 21 March 2018 at 15:21

Preview, facts stats ahead of the 2018 Formula 1 World Championship season-opening Australian Grand Prix, the first of 21 rounds, at Albert Park in Melbourne.

The Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit comprises public roads encircling Albert Park Lake, a man-made body of water just south of Melbourne’s central business district.

The roads were rebuilt prior to Formula 1’s debut at the track in 1996, but because the surface only sees racecars about once a year, grip is hard to come by, especially in the initial practice sessions.

It’s a street circuit that behaves more like a natural road course. It’s quick too, with Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton setting a track-record time in qualifying last year with a blistering lap of 1:22.188 to take the pole.

The Essentials

Toughest corner Turn One. The cars approach this downhill right-hander at 300km/h (188mph) and scrub off 160km/h (100mph) in the braking zone, which is very bumpy. It’s easy for the drivers to lock a wheel and run wide, compromising their exit onto the second DRS straight
Unique difficulty The track surface, which is bumpy and slippery. Grip levels improve as it cleans up and rubber gets laid down on the racing line, but there’s less grip off-line, which makes overtaking difficult
Biggest headache Bumps, on both a micro and a macro level. Where the bitumen in the asphalt has worn away, the surface is more abrasive and harder on the tyre. But there are also lots of bumps, particularly on the start-finish straight, and that forces the engineers to soften the suspension

Tech Lowdown

Brakes There are seven significant braking zones around the lap, which places an emphasis on brake cooling. An added complication for the teams is that the weight of the cars has increased this year to 734kg – up 12kg from 2017
Power The cars use 1.7kg of fuel per lap, the third highest of the year, which will force the drivers to lift-and-coast for a period of the race, if there’s no Safety Car period
Aero Maximum downforce, except along the two DRS zones – on the approaches to Turns One and Three

Statistics for Sunday’s season-opening Australian Formula One Grand Prix at Melbourne’s Albert Park circuit:

Lap distance: 5.303 km. Total distance: 307.574km (58 laps)
2017 pole: Lewis Hamilton (Britain) Mercedes one minute 22.188 seconds.
2017 winner: Sebastian Vettel (Germany) Ferrari
Race lap record: Michael Schumacher (Germany), Ferrari 2004, One minute 24.125 seconds
Start time: 0510GMT (1610 local)

World Champions

For the first time in Formula One history, a season opener will have two four-times world champions — Vettel and Hamilton — lining up on the starting grid.
Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso are the other two world champions on the grid.

Race Victories

Hamilton has 62 victories from 208 races and is second in the all-time list behind seven-times world champion Michael Schumacher (91). Vettel has 47.
Ferrari have won 229 races since 1950, McLaren 182, Williams 114, Mercedes 76 and Red Bull 55. Former champions McLaren and Williams have not won since 2012.

Pole Position

Hamilton has a record 72 career poles. Vettel has 50.
Pole has produced the winner at Albert Park on nine occasions. Hamilton has been on pole six times there in total (2008, 2012 and 2014-17).
The Briton has won twice in Australia from pole, in 2008 and 2015.
Max Verstappen, at 20 years old, can become the youngest ever pole sitter this season. The current youngest is Vettel, who did it at the age of 21.

Podium

Hamilton has 117 career podiums and is second on the all-time list behind Schumacher (155). Vettel has 99, Raikkonen 91.

Points

Hamilton now has 25 scoring finishes in a row and is just two off Kimi Raikkonen’s record of 27.
Four drivers on the grid have yet to score points in their F1 careers: Rookies Charles Leclerc (Sauber) and Sergey Sirotkin (Williams) and the Toro Rosso pair of Brendon Hartley and Pierre Gasly.
Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson last scored a point in 2015.

Australian Grand Prix

No Australian has ever won a home grand prix.
There have been 13 Australian F1 drivers since 1950 and two world champions — Jack Brabham and Alan Jones. Daniel Ricciardo is the only Australian in Sunday’s race.
All four of the sport’s active champions (Hamilton, Vettel, Alonso, Raikkonen) have won in Australia.
Melbourne has been the season-opener 20 times. This year’s race is the 23rd to be held at Albert Park. The winner in Melbourne has gone on to be world champion 13 out of 22 times.
The lowest starter to win was Britain’s Eddie Irvine from 11th in 1999 for Ferrari.
Eight of the last 10 races in Australia have seen the safety car deployed. McLaren’s last podium was in Australia in 2014.

Milestones

Vettel can take his 100th career podium on Sunday.
Sunday will be the first Formula 1 race with cars equipped with the distinctive new ‘halo’ head protection system.