The Australian Grand Prix takes places on Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne. It’s a temporary street circuit that’s set up exclusively for the Formula One each year.
Here’s the full details of the Australia F1 track layout, including a circuit map.
Contents
Where is the Australian Grand Prix held?
The Australian Grand Prix is held on Albert Park Street circuit. It’s a temporary circuit set up on the roads that go around Albert Park, an urban park in Melbourne, Victoria.
Every year the park is closed to the public and the roads are turned in to a race track surrounding Albert Park Lake for the GP.
See the full Australian F1 schedule for details on dates and timings of this year’s race.
Original Australian Track Layout (1996 - 2020)
The Australian Grand Prix was first held on Albert Park circuit in 1996 and the inaugural race was won by Damon Hill in a Williams-Renault F1 car.
It was held every year from 1996 until 2019, but was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19. The Albert Park circuit layout remained unchanged until 2020, and consisted of 16 corners.
Current Australian Grand Prix Track Layout (2021 - Present)
Changes to the Australian F1 track layout
In 2021 the Melbourne GP race organisers made some changes to the Albert Park circuit layout to make it faster and to improve overtaking opportunities.
In total seven corners were modified, two of which were removed altogether. Turns 1, 3, 6, 11 and 13 were widened to increase the minimum apex speeds. The chicane at Turns 9 and 10 was completely removed, resulting in a 1.3km flat-out section.
Updated circuit layout
Below is the current Albert Park F1 circuit map, incorporating all of these changes which reduces the number of corners to 14.
The total length of the Albert Park circuit is 5.278km / 3.280 miles, and an average lap time is around 1 minute 20 seconds. See my list of the Albert Park fastest lap times and records for more info on the quickest laps in F1, F2, F3, Supercars and Porsche Carrera Cup.
How many laps is the Australian Grand Prix?
The Australian Grand Prix runs for a total of 58 laps or 2 hours, whichever comes first.
Usually a clean race without and delays or stoppages can be completed in just under 90 minutes. In 2023, however, there were an unprecedented three red-flag stoppages, meaning it took over 2 hours and 30 minutes in total to complete the 58 laps.
Australia DRS Zones
How many DRS Zones does Australia have?
The Australian Grand Prix circuit has a total of four DRS zones (activation points), split across two different DRS detection points.
The fourth DRS Zones was introduced in 2022, after previously only have three DRS zones at the 2019 Australian Grand Prix. Four DRS zones will remain at Albert Park circuit.
Where are the DRS Zones at the Melbourne Grand Prix?
The first DRS zone has a detection point after Turn 6, the first activation point after Turn 8 and the second activation point after Turn 10.
The second DRS zone has a detection point just before Turn 13, the third activation point just after Turn 14 and the fourth activation point after Turn 2.
The DRS Zones on the Australian F1 track layout are arranged in quite a unique way. For starters, it’s unusual to have 4 DRS zones especially on a track as short as Albert Park.
To have those four zones split across two different detection points is also quite rare. Usually there will be one DRS zone per activation point, not two like there are here.
Formula 1 management have made a concerted effort to improve the closeness of the racing and they’ve done that at all circuits on the calendar by increasing the DRS zones. This is a prime example of that, and combined with the changes to the track layout it has made for some pretty exciting Melbourne Grand Prix in the last couple of years.
Longest straight
The longest true straight on the Australia F1 track layout is the start / finish straight. This is a total of 0.8km / 0.5 miles long.
However, the longest flat-out section, where drivers can go full throttle continuously, is the run from Turn 8 to Turn 9. This is thanks to the new circuit layout, where the old chicane half way along this section would slow the cars down a lot.
Now removed, this makes for a run of over 1.3km / 0.8 miles before the drivers have to lift off the throttle for the entry of the very high speed Turn 9.
Fans can watch the action here from the Clark or Button stands.
Top speed on the Melbourne Grand Prix track layout
At the 2023 Melbourne Grand Prix Sergio Perez reached 341kph / 211mph whilst using a combination of DRS and the slipstream from another car on the long run before Turn 9.
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