After two years of absence, the Australian Grand Prix is back in our lives. Since the last race in 2019, a lot has happened in Formula One and the world. Aside from the pandemic, the F1 scene looks very different from what it did in 2019.
Since the last race in Melbourne, Verstappen won the driver’s championship in the controversial final race in Abu Dhabi, races in Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been introduced, Imola and Zandvoort have returned, and new races in Miami and Las Vegas have been announced.
Although Albert Park is a familiar venue, it is not the same circuit we all remember. The parklands circuit has stayed constant since the first Melbourne event in 1996 due to the nature of the parklands track, built each year out of public roads and parking lots. Same road surface. Same corners. While the cars have evolved significantly, the circuit remained the same. Until now.
Let’s look at what has happened to Australia’s home race track and its effect on racing.
What has changed?
Some corners have been reprofiled or deleted entirely in the pursuit of improved racing. The track has reduced corners from 16 to 14.
Turn one, a notorious hot spot for crashes, has been expanded by two and a half metres at the apex. Turn three retains the initial heavy braking zone, but it has been widened to the driver’s right by four metres to create more passing opportunities.
Turns four and five remain unchanged. However, turn six has been widened by seven metres, resulting in a significant increase in apex speed.
Turns 9 and 10 have been demolished to create a straight, enabling a new, fourth DRS zone.
The original turn 13 has been renamed turn 11. Located at the end of a long drag it has been straightened on entry and widened by three and a half metres at its apex.
The last modification occurs at former turn 15, now turn 13, where the track has been widened by three and a half meters.
Finally, since the circuit’s inception in 1996, the whole track has been resurfaced. For the first time ever, the layout will have quadruple DRS zones: at the start-finish straight, between turns two and three, then corners eight and nine, and lastly between turns ten and eleven.
Will the new track improve racing?
Changes have been made to improve the racing at a circuit where overtaking has been rare. There are expectations that the new layout would improve the spectacle and projections that the lap will be 5 seconds faster than previously.
Australian Grand Prix Corporation chief executive Andrew Westacott believes it will be the most spectacular race in decades.
“You want to reward aggressive driving and penalise poor driving and we think that the changes we have made are going to achieve this.” said Westacott for Fox Sports.
While the intended impact of the renovations is striking, Albert Park remains recognisable in all the qualities that made it remarkable in the first place. It has kept its semi-street feel, with the barriers kept as close together as possible to keep the strain on the drivers. This is especially true early in the weekend when the new surface will be the least grippy and errors will be the most likely.
So the big question: who will thrive in the changes, and who might struggle to adapt?