I would never play favourites, but Australia may or may not be my favourite country on the calendar. The views, the people, the excitement the drivers get for this race, the long flights and extra travel days needed to adjust to jet lag all makes this race feel like a real spectacle. As an Aussie who is missing home massively while in Europe, I am incredibly jealous of everyone in attendance this weekend - it’s a sold-out race that will be a lot of fun no matter the results.
However, my excitement for the Australian GP has not always been mirrored by the rest of the F1 community. In the past, the track has been notoriously difficult to overtake on, producing some lacklustre races. Previously, it was only the fact of being the season opener that kept the excitement alive for the race. But, Albert Park has listened to the concerns and made some pretty major adjustments to the track. Firstly, the entire circuit has been resurfaced. The track functions as a public road all year-round, so it was bound to get a little bumpy after 27 years of use. Secondly, 7 corners have been widened or altered to provide more overtaking opportunities. We saw drivers grappling with the changes with varying success in FP1, with the new layout of corner 3 causing quite a few lockups. However, Albert Park representatives say that the drivers were consulted in the process of track upgrades, all working towards the same purpose of better on-track action.
Source: Formula 1
It seems more than likely that we will still have a Ferrari-Red Bull battle at the front. Not that I’m complaining, the back-and-forth battle between Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen last race was exactly what I wanted to see from this new generation of cars. However, I do hope that Perez and Sainz can get themselves into the mix in this race. The way I see it, the more cars in the championship battle, the better (and messier).
It’s a big weekend for the home hero, Daniel Ricciardo, coming at possibly the worst time. McLaren have had a nightmare start to the season, their worst since 2017. I’m sure Daniel will be hoping for a good result in front of the home crowd, but at the moment that might mean scraping just a point or two. He said that coming into the track on Thursday for media day ‘you would’ve thought it was race day’. Here’s to hoping that the crowd's energy helps him pull something miraculous from that car. As we saw at Monza 2021, everyone loves a good Danny Ric result.
This weekend will be all about seeing which teams have been able to rapidly bring upgrades to their cars that are impressive enough to drag them up the championship ladder. The leaders of the field will be looking to cement their spots and perhaps we’ll see some in-team driver hierarchies being formed. Even the early morning alarms won’t dim my excitement for this one!
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