Facts & History - Australian Grand Prix

Learn about the history of the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix, which has been held in Melbourne since 1996, more often than not as the first race of the new F1 season.

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The 2026 Australian Grand Prix is scheduled for March 5-8

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Melbourne began hosting the Australian Grand Prix at the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit (Albert Park) in 1996, taking over from Adelaide, which hosted the race from 1985-1995. Albert Park is a historic venue which held two non-championship Australian Grand Prix races in 1953 and 1956 on a shorter, anti-clockwise track.

For the majority of the year, Albert Park is a popular local recreational space with walking trails, picnic areas and sports facilities. The temporary circuit is assembled around six weeks before race weekend and then disassembled again four weeks after the race.

In recent years, typical attendance over the 4-day race weekend in Australia has been well over 400,000, with a crowd in excess of 130,000 spectators on race day, making it one of the best attended races on the current F1 calendar. Figures boomed after the coronavirus pandemic, which prevented the Australian Grand Prix from taking place in both 2020 and 2021.

In 2022, on F1’s return to Albert Park after its enforced two-year absence, the attendance figure exceeded 400,000. It was the best-attended Australian Grand Prix since the event moved to Melbourne in 1996 – but that figure has since been broken four times in the four succeeding years, growing to a record figure of almost 485,000 in 2026. Read a detailed history of attendance figures at the Australian Grand Prix.

There is a friendly atmosphere and the multicultural population of Melbourne provides a great welcome for traveling fans. The Australians do such a good job of organizing the race weekend that representatives from Australia have helped organizers from newer races on the calendar to plan their own Grands Prix. The Australian Grand Prix costs taxpayers in Victoria in excess of $50m AUD per annum, which has been a source of some controversy for some time, despite the tourism revenue and global promotion the city enjoys from the race.

After signing a two-year contract extension in 2019 to keep Albert Park on the F1 calendar until 2025, Australian Grand Prix organisers signed a longer-term deal in June 2022. The new deal secured the future of the event in Melbourne until at least 2035. The agreement was extended by a further two years, to 2037, just six months later. It remains one of the longest contracts of any race on the current Formula 1 calendar.

Since joining the schedule in 1996, the Australian Grand Prix had become the traditional season-opening race, doing so in all but two years from its debut until 2019. In 2025, the Melbourne race returned to the season-opening slot for the first time in six years. Under its most recent contract, the race will be the first of the season at least another two times before the contract ends in 2037.

In 2023, Formula 2 and Formula 3 joined Albert Park’s support race schedule for the first time, giving trackside spectators even more on-track action to watch. The race weekend runs for four day, with the first day featuring only support races – including the popular Supercars series – on track.

Australia’s Home Race Heroes

Australian drivers have had plenty of success in Formula 1. Their drivers have amassed over 50 wins, 40 pole positions and 150 podium finishes as of the start of the 2026 season, along with four world titles (three for Jack Brabham and one for Alan Jones). Read More: The Top 10 Australian Formula 1 Drivers

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 4th place. Mark Webber was the first driver to do this, in 2012. Daniel Ricciardo finished second in 2014, but was later disqualified. He went on to finish fourth in the Australian Grand Prix in 2016 and 2018. Oscar Piastri joined the club of Australian drivers finishing fourth in their home race at the 2024 Australian Grand Prix.

In 2023, McLaren rookie Piastri followed in the footsteps of his manager Webber by scoring his maiden Formula 1 points on home soil. He did so with an eighth place finish. Read more about Australia’s Home Race Heroes.

Australian Grand Prix: Did you Know?

Michael Schumacher is the most successful driver at Albert Park, scoring four wins (2000, 2001, 2002, 2004).

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.

Danish driver Kevin Magnussen finished second in Australia in 2014 on his debut. He would never finish on the podium again in Formula 1.

Magnussen isn’t the only driver to have taken a podium finish on debut at Albert Park. Jacques Villeneuve and Lewis Hamilton did the same in 1996 and 2007 respectively. Villeneuve also took pole position at the inaugural event.

The 2007 Australian Grand Prix is the only time, other than the first F1 race, where every driver on the podium was making their maiden appearance for the team with whom they were competing. Kimi Raikkonen won on his Ferrari debut, while Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton both made their first podium appearances for McLaren.

It takes an estimated 290,000 man hours to assemble the circuit every year.

Lewis Hamilton took pole at the Australian Grand Prix in every season between 2014 and 2019, but converted only one of those pole positions (2015) into race victory.

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.

Memorable Australian Grand Prix Moments

1996: Brundle Flies at Turn 3

The first race of the modern era at Albert Park got off to a chaotic start. Martin Brundle launched his Jordan car through the air after hitting the back of David Coulthard’s McLaren at Turn 3 in a spectacular accident. Incredibly, Brundle escaped unhurt and was even able to take the restart of the Grand Prix in the team’s spare car. The corner has become renowned for large accidents, with Fernando Alonso also infamously colliding there with Esteban Gutierrez’s Haas in 2016. Alonso was forced to miss the following race as a result of his injuries in the dramatic crash.

2002:Webber’s Minardi Debut

When Mark Webber made his F1 debut with Minardi in 2002, it’s fair to say that expectations weren’t particularly high for the Australian’s performance in his first race. Webber became the first Australian to start his home race since 1994, qualifying in eighteenth. By the closing stages of the Grand Prix, Webber had made his way up to fifth. The Minardi was struggling, having lost top gear and with Mika Salo closing in. Webber held on to take an impressive fifth place finish in his maiden Grand Prix, scoring Minardi’s first points since 1999. He and team boss Paul Stoddart even had their own podium celebrations in front of the enthusiastic partisan crowd!

2008: An Afternoon of Mayhem

The 2008 Australian Grand Prix was a chaotic one, with just seven drivers reaching the end of the race. A multitude of incidents saw five drivers end their races on the first lap, while Felipe Massa and David Coulthard had a sizeable coming together at Turn 1 before the race had reached half-distance. The largest crash of the afternoon was for Timo Glock as he ran wide and broke his suspension, sending his Toyota car airborne. Rubens Barrichello was disqualified from the race having left the pit-lane when the red light was showing. The incident occurred after the Brazilian had a bad pit-stop, in which he left his pit-box with the fuel-hose still attached. Despite all of the incidents around him, Lewis Hamilton stayed calm to take victory, while Nico Rosberg secured his first podium finish.

2009: Brawn GP’s Rise from the Ashes

As Honda announced their withdrawal from Formula 1 at the end of 2008, Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello were left without a drive. Luckily for them, and the workforce at the Brackley factory, Ross Brawn stepped in to save the team. Brawn GP turned up to the Australian Grand Prix having set impressive lap times in Winter Testing. Their pace was confirmed as Button took pole and went on to win the race, with his team-mate finishing as runner-up. It was the first win for a team making their debut since Mercedes in 1954.