Formula One Preview: Australian Grand Prix
- Peter Johnson
- 4 minutes ago
- 6 min read
By Peter Johnson, Edited by Marit Everett
Just 91 days on from the chequered flag falling in Abu Dhabi, the lights will go out for the start of the 77th Formula One World Championship. With a brand new era of regulations in place, there are 21 drivers poised to wrestle Lando Norris’ newly-earned crown from him at the first attempt.
Circuit guide
The Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne first joined the Formula One calendar in 1996, picking up the mantle from the Adelaide Street Circuit.
The 14-corner track winds around the Albert Park Lake and sits barely 500 metres from Australia’s southern coast.
Between 1996 and 2019, the Melbourne venue hosted the season opener on all but two occasions, and was set to do so once more in 2020 before the event was cancelled due to the outbreak of Covid-19. Albert Park then lost its status as the curtain-raiser for a number of years, but was restored to its traditional position on the calendar in 2025.
The track has remained largely unchanged since the 1990s, although a significant reprofiling of several corners and a complete reworking of sector 2 was undertaken prior to its return to the calendar post-Covid.
Back in the olden days there were four DRS zones around the lap to promote overtaking at a venue where passing a rival is often rather difficult. It will be a fascinating first outing for the new regulations and we will see whether active aero and battery deployment make overtaking any easier.
Session times
Practice 1 Fri 12:30 - 13:30 local (01:30 - 02:30 GMT)
Practice 2 Fri 16:00 - 17:00 local (05:00 - 06:00 GMT)
Practice 3 Sat 12:30 - 13:30 local (01:30 - 02:30 GMT)
Qualifying Sat 16:00 - 17:00 local (05:00 - 06:00 GMT)
Race Sun 15:00 local (04:00 GMT)
Weather forecast
The teams arrived in a rather damp Melbourne earlier this week, with the weather hardly your stereotypical image of the land Down Under.
However, it is set to brighten up by the time the cars hit the track, with wall-to-wall sunshine from Friday to Sunday and high temperatures between 22 and 25 degrees Celsius.
Major talking points
A new era: 2026 marks the start of a new dawn in F1, with arguably the biggest regulation change in the sport’s history. Significant changes to the regulations concerning engines, aerodynamics, tyres and fuel have led to a total overhaul in car performance and behaviour, although several drivers were vocal during testing that they are sceptical that their new machinery equates to pure racing. While there may be a greater emphasis on managing battery deployment than pushing flat-out, the success of the new regulations will ultimately be judged by the quality of the racing.
Cards on the table: It is always impossible to judge accurately the pecking order of the teams based on testing, and Qualifying in Australia is the first time we will get a clear picture. There has been endless chatter over the winter about the legality of Mercedes’ engine, which is expected to give the works team as well as their customer teams McLaren, Williams and Alpine a performance advantage. However, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc posted the fastest time in testing by almost a second, so who knows?
Newey’s nightmare: It has been a truly disastrous pre-season for Aston Martin, with Adrian Newey’s squad posting just a fraction of the laps delivered by the other ten teams across testing. The Silverstone outfit is now essentially a Honda works team, although, similarly to Honda’s return in 2015, it appears the Japanese manufacturer’s engine is somewhat problematic. Lance Stroll suggested the car could be four seconds a lap slower than its rivals, while owner Lawrence Stroll has invested significantly in infrastructure and staff in recent years only for the team to look less competitive than ever before.
Hello, my name is Cadillac: For the new boys in the paddock, Cadillac, 2026 is more than just a new era. The team named for General Motors’ luxury car brand becomes the 11th team on the grid and the first brand new entry since Haas’ debut in 2016. Team Principal Graeme Lowdon, previously of Virgin and Marussia, has one of the most experienced driver lineups in the paddock with Valtteri Bottas and Segio Pérez both returning to motorsport’s top table. Expectations are low for the team’s first season, although it would not be beyond the realms of possibility to see Cadillac ahead of Aston Martin in the opening rounds.
Rookie watch: It may be Formula One’s largest field since 2016, but there is room for just one rookie on this year’s grid. Arvid Lindblad is the latest product of Red Bull’s driver development programme and will become Great Britain’s 164th F1 driver when he takes to the track on Friday. The last driver to make his debut for Racing Bulls/Alpha Tauri/Toro Rosso and not eventually drive for Red Bull was Nyck de Vries in 2023, although the last graduate of the team’s driver academy not to get a shot at the top team was Brendan Hartley, who left the sport in 2018. Previous history suggests that Lindblad will be well-placed for a swift promotion if he performs well, but plenty before him have failed to make the grade at Red Bull’s junior team.
Past Australian Grands Prix
It may not be the easiest circuit to overtake at, but the Australian Grand Prix has delivered a fair amount of chaos down the years. Partly as a result of its usual status as a season-opener, the Melbourne race is often one of attrition as teams continue to get their heads around their new machinery.
The 2008 race, won by Lewis Hamilton, remains the best example of this, with just six of the 22 starters seeing the chequered flag. Indeed, Sébastian Bourdais and Kimi Räikkönen were both classified in the top 8 and awarded points despite retiring from the race.
Ralf Schumacher had a frightening start to his 2002 campaign with an airborne accident at the first corner of the entire season, while Martin Brundle and Fernando Alonso have both suffered terrifying accidents at Turn 3 in 1996 and 2016 respectively.
The 2023 Australian Grand Prix witnessed a truly chaotic conclusion, with a third red flag of the race three laps from the end triggering a multi-car pile up involving six cars and a race-ending collision between the Alpine pair of Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon.
Last year’s soaking wet curtain raiser went to form with Isack Hadjar crashing on the formation lap, while Jack Doohan, Carlos Sainz, Fernando Alonso, Gabriel Bortoleto and Liam Lawson all also suffered race-ending damage.
Lewis Hamilton had a debut to forget with Ferrari, settling for a tenth-placed finish as the Scuderia were caught out by changing weather conditions.
The battle at the front turned out to be a microcosm for the entire season to come, as Oscar Piastri slid out of contention for the win, while Max Verstappen chased Lando Norris all the way to the chequered flag.
If we look back to the first race of the previous set of regulations, the 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix, don’t be surprised to see a couple of shocks. On that particular day, Red Bull drivers Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez were both forced to retire with mechanical issues, although the team eventually claimed both championships that year in emphatic fashion.
Drivers to watch
George Russell: Prior to a single wheel being turned in testing, George Russell was marked the favourite for the Drivers’ Championship, with his team favourites for the Constructors’ title. Little happened throughout the Barcelona shakedown or two Bahrain tests to suggest such claims are particularly wide of the mark, although reliability issues faced during the first test may still give the team concern.
Charles Leclerc: Pre-season testing was also very promising for Ferrari, with Lewis Hamilton showing the strongest race pace of anybody in the first Bahrain test. Charles Leclerc upped the ante on the final day of the second test, posting the fastest lap of pre-season by almost a second. Testing times must be taken with a pinch of salt, but the new Ferrari looks tidy in both qualifying and race trim. As arguably the grid’s best qualifier, Leclerc may be better placed than Hamilton to challenge for the win on an overtake-shy circuit on Sunday.
Pierre Gasly: Alpine comes into 2026 with big expectations, having finished bottom of last year’s Constructors’ Championship last season and switched to Mercedes power over the Winter. Flavio Briatore’s squad should take a huge step forward relative to other teams in the midfield, with Pierre Gasly the team’s likeliest source of points.
