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F1 2018 – Preview of the Australian Grand Prix

The 2018 Formula 1 season starts with the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park, Melbourne this weekend (March 23-25, 2018). The home of the race has been the tight street circuit around the Albert Park Lake in Melbourne from 1996. This is the 23rd running of the race here. This is the 21st time the Grand Prix is being run at Melbourne as the opening race of the season (exceptions were in 2006 and 2010).

Preview of the Australian Grand Prix

The History

The inaugural Australian Grand Prix was held in 1985 on a street circuit in the Australian city of Adelaide. The race in Adelaide was traditionally the last race of the season. The inaugural race there was won by Keke Rosberg for Williams. The Grand Prix became a popular venue for drivers and teams and took root in Australia. When the race moved from South Australia to Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, it became the opening race of the season. The first race in 1996 here was won by Damon Hill for Williams.

The Teams and Drivers

McLaren is on top of the leaderboard with 11 wins at the Australian GP so far. Ferrari with eight wins is second. Williams with five wins is the other team which has enjoyed the most success “down under”. Mercedes has won the title in the first three years of the hybrid engine era (2014-2016).

Michael Schumacher is the most prolific winner with four wins (2000, 2001, 2002, 2004) at the current venue. The great German won his first drivers’ championship in 1994 in controversial fashion by one point over Damon Hill at the Australian GP held in Adelaide.

Fernando Alonso (2006), Kimi Raikkonen (2007, 2013), Lewis Hamilton (2008, 2015) and Sebastian Vettel (2011,2017) are the drivers on the current grid who have won at Albert Park. The rookie brigade of Charles Leclerc (Sauber), Sergey Sirotkin (Williams) will be excited and nervous in equal parts. No Australian has ever won this home Grand Prix. Daniel Ricciardo will try to end this drought on Sunday.

The Circuit


The 5.303 km Albert Park street circuit is a mixture of sixteen slow and medium speed corners. The twisty nature of the track demands precise driving as drivers can end up in the wall or the gravel with the slightest mistake. The track is a medium to high downforce track and a heavy braking circuit. The circuit is a high fuel consumption track and the regulations allow a maximum of 105 Kgs of fuel onboard each car.

Sectors, Corners, and DRS Zones

Sector 1 (Turn 1 to Turn 5) starts with the starting straight funneling into the narrow Turn 1. This is followed by the left-hand corner at Turn 2 and quick change of directions in the next corners and ends with the short straight after Turn 5.

Sector 2 (Turn 6 to Turn 10) is comprised of a series of right-hand corners and accelerate hard through Turn 10

Sector 3 (Turn 11 to Turn 16) starts with the left-right chicane at Turn 11-Turn 12 and is then punctuated by short straights leading to the start-finish line.

As the circuit is a temporary street circuit, it has fairly low grip and takes time to ‘rubber in’. The tight nature of the track especially at Turn 1 has led to many a first lap incident. The safety car makes a frequent appearance in this race.

The drivers will be vying for pole position as grid position is important on this narrow track with few overtaking opportunities. There are three DRS Zones this year with the introduction of a third zone to increase overtaking opportunities. There is one common DRS Detection point before Turn 14.The first DRS Activation point is before Turn 1 and second DRS Activation point is before Turn 3. The new DRS Detection point is before Turn 11 and the new Activation point is after Turn 12.

Tyre Strategies

Pirelli tyre choices are the purple-striped ultrasoft tyres, red-striped supersoft tyres, yellow-striped soft tyres. The drivers have selected 7 or more sets of the ultrasoft tyres of 13 sets allocated for each driver. There are two new tyre compounds introduced by Pirelli for 2018 – the hypersoft and the ultrahard compound tyres. The pitlane speed limit at Albert Park is 60 km/h, making the pitstop time over twenty seconds atleast.

Current Form

All the teams and drivers will start with zero points at this first race. The three teams at the sharp end of the grid are Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull Racing. The pecking order of the midfield teams is not very clear cut. The teams are all closely matched.

Sebastian Vettel is the defending champion at this race and would like nothing better than starting the season with a win. The German has a chance to clinch the 100th podium if his career in this race. Lewis Hamilton has six poles at Albert Park and will try to start his defense of the drivers’ title on a winning note. Daniel Ricciardo is a big crowd favorite at his home Grand Prix and would like to become the first Australian to win this race. The ever combative Max Verstappen would surely be in the mix at the front of the grid. It would be interesting to see if Haas F1 or Renault can pull off surprises.

So with the excitement building up, all Formula 1 fans are waiting to hear the familiar words “Lights are out and away we go” on Sunday. The new Halo Systems on the cars has made the FIA move the position of the lights to a lower height for better visibility. FIA’s F1 Race Director Charlie Whiting said:“With the halo what we’ve asked every circuit to do is to make the lights at a standard height above the track. We’ve also put a repeat set of lights, in this case off to the left, over the verge. “

As usual there is one main question at the start of the 2018 F1 season. “Can the other teams challenge the Mercedes dominance which started with the new hybrid engine era from 2014?”.

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