The Australian Grand Prix Preview

By Teagan Crump

And so, another Formula One season begins. Lando Norris took the crown in the final race of 2025, and he will be looking to defend the title.

Whilst we are only at the start of the season, all 22 drivers' eyes will already be locked in and focusing on the season ahead and maximising on last year's results.

📸: Casey Horsfield

This year's Australian Grand Prix will be held at the Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit on Sunday March 8th at 4am UK time (3pm local time).

The opening round means that all drivers' points are reset to zero and all is to fight for. Whilst it is a long season ahead, many of the top drivers will likely be focusing on the championship and for Lando Norris, the pressure is even more.

2025 Australian Grand Prix recap

📸: F1

The 2025 Australian Grand Prix has incredibly wet condition.

The Formation Lap saw Racing Bulls' rookie, Isack Hadjar, crash out giving him a premature end to his Formula One debut.

Lando Norris started from pole and successfully maintained the lead of the race despite Max Verstappen having an incredible launch. Disaster struck for Alpine's Jack Doohan when he crashed and caused a safety car.

Lap 2 saw a crash for Carlos Sainz while under the Safety Car, one of the most shocking moments of the Grand Prix.

On lap 16, Kimi Antonelli and Nico Hülkenberg engaged in a thrilling battle with the rookie coming out on top. However, just two laps later Antonelli spun and all of his hard work was undone.

Lap 17 saw a rare mistake from Verstappen, meaning that he conceded second position to Oscar Piastri.

On lap 34, Fernando Alonso crashed and suffered a DNF. Lap 44 saw the rain return and a spin for both McLaren drivers and Charles Leclerc. As a result Verstappen got the lead of the race.

Two laps later, Lewis Hamilton claimed the lead. On lap 47, Norris reclaimed the lead but both Liam Lawson and Gabriel Bortoleto crashed out of the race.

Eventually, on lap 57, Lando Norris crossed the line in first, followed by Max Verstappen in second and George Russel in third position.

What to expect at the 2026 Australian Grand Prix

The weather for the Australian Grand Prix looks to be good, but we have seen in past years that the conditions can change in an instant.

📸: BBC Weather

This year's Australian Grand Prix will be a learning curve for many of the teams- Aston Martin have faced immense struggles and their Australian Grand Prix is allegedly facing turmoil with the drivers only allowed to run a certain amount of laps.

Adrian Newey, Team Principal of Aston Martin, said:

"Without giving away any technical details, what we have achieved for this weekend, it tested on the dyno over the course of the weekend and got to the solution which we will be using here at Melbourne.

"That has successfully significantly reduced the vibration going into the battery but what is important to remember is, effectively the PU, the combination of the ICE and possibly the MGU as well, is the source of the vibration. It's the amplifier. The chassis is – in that scenario – the receiver.

"That vibration into the chassis is causing a few reliability problems, mirrors falling off, tail lights falling off, all that sort of thing, which we are having to address."

He then went on to explain the issues the drivers were facing:

"Fernando is of the feeling that he can't do more than 25 laps consecutively before he will risk permanent nerve damage to his hands."

"Lance is of the opinion that he can't do more than 15 laps before that threshold.

"To me I think there's no point in not being open and honest on our expectations. We are going to have to be very heavily restricted on how many laps we do in the race until we get on top of the source of the vibration and improve the vibration at source."

Home-town hero Oscar Piastri will be aiming to improve on last year, when he suffered with a spin and could only recover to ninth place.

Speaking to the media, he said:

“I think it would be optimistic – or very optimistic – to say we’re going to have the same form as we did here 12 months ago. I think we’re somewhere towards the front, but from testing it feels like Mercedes and Ferrari got a little bit on us and Red Bull.

“But things are chopping and changing so quickly as everyone learns and brings things to the cars, so we’ll have to wait and see. I think last year we were coming here with very, very high hopes that we could achieve something special, and this year I think we can still have a good result, but to achieve the same kind of performance we’re going to have to find a bit more.”

Piastri also said:

“I think every driver wants to win their home race and that’s no different for me. Having it as a season opener, there’s a large element of the unknown there, but I would love to win here.

“If we’ve got the car to do it – and even if we don’t have the car to do it – I’ll be trying my absolute best to, but we’ll have to wait and see what kind of performance we’ve got.”