page_title: Australian Grand Prix
section_title: Albert Park, Melbourne
hierarchical_section_title: Australian Grand Prix / History / Formula One / Albert Park, Melbourne
caption_attribution_description: English: 2008 Australian Grand Prix Podium with drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nick Heidfeld
context_page_description: The Australian Grand Prix is a motor race held annually in Australia currently under contract to host Formula One until 2025. The Grand Prix is the second oldest surviving motor racing competition held in Australia, after the Alpine rally first held in 1921, having been contested 83 times since it was first run at Phillip Island in 1928. It is currently sponsored with naming rights by Swiss watchmaker Rolex.
  Prior to its inclusion in the World Championship, it was held at a multitude of venues in every state of Australia. It was a centrepiece of the Tasman Series in most years between 1964 and 1972 and was a round of the Australian Drivers' Championship on many occasions between 1957 and 1983.
  Unusually, even for a race of such longevity, as of 2020 the location of the Grand Prix has moved frequently with 23 different venues having been used over its life, a number eclipsing the 16 venues used for the French Grand Prix since its own 1906 start.
  The race became part of the Formula One World Championship in 1985 and was held at the Adelaide Street Circuit in Adelaide, South Australia, from that year to 1995. From 1996 it has been held at the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne.
context_section_description: In 1993 prominent Melbourne businessman Ron Walker began working with the Kennett government to make Melbourne the host of the event. After the government of Jeff Kennett spent an undisclosed amount, it was announced in late 1993 (days after the South Australian election) that the race would be shifted to a rebuilt Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne. The race moved to Melbourne in 1996. The decision to hold the race there was controversial.  A series of protests were organised by the "Save Albert Park" group, which claimed that the race turned a public park into a private playground for one week per year.  Additionally, they claimed that the race cost a great deal of money that would be better spent, if it were to be spent on motor racing, on a permanent circuit elsewhere. Finally, they said that the claimed economic benefits of the race were false or exaggerated. The race organisers and the government claimed that the economic benefits to the state, although unquantifiable, outweighed the costs, and highlighted that the park's public amenities have been greatly improved from the World War II vintage facilities previously located at Albert Park; the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre (scene of many Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games events) being the centre piece and best known of the revitalised facilities. Opponents of holding the race in the park point out that the Aquatic Centre adds nothing to the Grand Prix, is effectively closed for weeks surrounding the event and could have been built independent of the car race.
  Bernie Ecclestone, the then president of Formula One Management, the group that runs modern-day Formula One in conjunction with the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), once famously said that it took 10 minutes to do the deal with Melbourne that would see the Victorian capital host the Australian Grand Prix from 1996. It was thought that Melbourne's unsuccessful quest to stage the 1996 Olympic Games, and the subsequently successful bid by northern rival city Sydney to host the 2000 Summer Olympics, was a driving force behind Melbourne's motivation to wrest the Australian Grand Prix away from Adelaide. The Australian Grand Prix at Adelaide in 1985–1995 was always the last event in the Formula One calendar – but from 1996 onwards, it has usually been the first event or was held early in the season.
  Albert Park, within easy reach of the Melbourne central business district, became home to the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne. A 16-turn circuit, which measures 5.3 kilometres in its current guise, was built utilising a combination of public roads and a car park within the park. The circuit is renowned as being a smooth and high-speed test for Formula One teams and drivers. Its characteristics are similar to the only other street circuit set in a public park used in the Formula One World Championship, the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal which hosts the Canadian Grand Prix.
  The promotional theme for the first race in Melbourne was "Melbourne – What a Great Place for the Race". Some 401,000 people turned out for the four days leading up to and including the first race in 1996, which remains a record for the event. The logistics of creating a temporary circuit and hosting an event of the magnitude of a Formula One Grand Prix from scratch were not lost on the international visitors, with Melbourne winning the F1 Constructors' Association Award for the best organised Grand Prix of the year in its first two years (1996 and 1997).
  It took just three corners for the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park to gain worldwide attention. On the first lap of the first race in 1996, Jordan's Martin Brundle was launched into the air in an enormous accident. Footage of the crash, and Brundle's subsequent rush back to the pits to take the spare car for the restart, ensured the first race in Melbourne gained widespread coverage. The race was won by Williams's Damon Hill.
   The 1997 race saw McLaren, through David Coulthard, break a drought of 50 races without a victory. The next year was a McLaren benefit, with Mi
caption: 2008 Race Winner Lewis Hamilton on the Podium with Nick Heidfeld
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