Presentation – Australian GP: Everyone to your seats, the season begins!
After four months of waiting, interspersed with announcements, presentations, and tests, Formula 1 is back in Melbourne to start its 69th season under the best auspices. Motors Inside helps you get your bearings with this presentation.
« Albert Park is not the easiest track to overtake on, we will do our best but the straights are not long enough and many of the corners leading to them are at 90 degrees, making it difficult to set up an overtake. Turns 11 and 12 are the fastest corners and are really cool to negotiate, especially in qualifying with low fuel in sixth or seventh.
The trees around the track sometimes make the braking points difficult to spot with the shadows, which is quite normal on a street circuit, but it’s more challenging for us to get things right. »
A street circuit without its backdrop, that’s essentially what Melbourne’s layout is. Beneath its guise of a traditional circuit lies a narrow track with plenty of vegetation, making navigation tricky even if you manage to find your braking and steering points, as Max Verstappen highlights.
The race takes place in the late afternoon, the light gradually dims, and the shadows lengthen, adding variety for the driver, who must lap after lap pay attention to the visibility of crucial reference points, especially to avoid braking too late.
A tour of the property
Kick off raceweek with a #Fit4F1 breakdown of this weekend’s #AUSGP circuit! https://t.co/jdJHaZGWUI pic.twitter.com/vO1J1I9Z3V
— Pirelli Motorsport (@pirellisport) 19 mars 2018
For posterity
Every race, every Grand Prix has its own story and sometimes it’s more interesting or more unprecedented than a simple procession of single-seaters for a few dozen laps. Melbourne stands out among the Grand Prix races with twists and turns, as evidenced by this compilation of five incidents, the first of which is one of the most famous in modern F1, to which could be added the spectacular accident of Fernando Alonso in 2016.
The announcement of a new DRS zone
As traditionally, the Albert Park circuit had two DRS zones last year, like most circuits on the calendar. However, the FIA decided to add a third zone to allow cars to get closer. This zone will be located between turns 12 and 13, with detection before turn 11. The other two zones will, as usual, be on the start-finish straight and from the exit of turn 2 to turn 3. As always, there will be a single detection point at turn 14 for these two sections.
Tarmac and mistral
And here we go!!! First official appointment of the 2018 for our #F1 heroes shoes selection.
Looks like #F1 teams and drivers are hungry for our #Ultrasoft tyres for the #AusGP!
Download #infographic here https://t.co/Bt2rssZft0 pic.twitter.com/mXt4JEJOWf— Pirelli Motorsport (@pirellisport) 13 mars 2018
For the opening Grand Prix, the drivers largely favored the ultra-soft, the softest compound, and shunned the soft tire. The selection of only one set of soft tires for Hamilton, Sirotkin, and Grosjean suggests that their respective teammates will be responsible for testing it during practice, with the potential for using it in the race.
Weather conditions will be rather mild for Friday, with temperatures around 27°C and a partly cloudy sky. Things are expected to become more complicated on Saturday as thunderstorms and showers are forecast for late afternoon. However, temperatures should remain close to those of the previous day. For the race on Sunday, drivers will find a track washed by showers that persisted into the morning, with cooler temperatures, close to only 23°C, accompanied by a light breeze.
The TV program!
