The Australian Grand Prix season-opener takes place on a street circuit at Albert Park, but a slightly unusual one. Rather than being stop-and-go in nature like Monaco or Singapore, the track has a more flowing rhythm that also takes in some reasonably quick corners. Pirelli has nominated the C2, C3 and C4 compounds as the hard, medium and soft choices respectively under this year’s simpler new tyre rules, with only three colours – white, yellow and red – at each Grand Prix.
Track Characteristics
- Being a street circuit, the track is particularly green and slippery at the start of the weekend, with bumps adding to the lack of grip.
- There aren’t that many long corners, which means that it’s not always easy to bring tyres up to temperature.
- A one-stop strategy was the winning choice last year – used by the majority of drivers – and although we need to see degradation rates from free practice, this is likely to be the case again.
- There’s a high likelihood of a safety car in Melbourne, which affects strategy: one of the reasons why pole position isn’t as crucial in Australia as it can be at other races. The pole position driver has only won once in the last five years…
- Weather is often a mixed bag, helping to make Melbourne one of the more unpredictable races of the year. Forecasts so far suggest it will be cloudy but dry.
- Good traction is key to an quick time, in order to get a good drive out of the corners onto the many short straights that characterise the track.
