Promotional poster for the first Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide
in 1985.
The
Australian Grand Prix is a
Formula One race that is part of the annual FIA
Formula One World Championship.
It is held at the Melbourne Grand
Prix Circuit
at Albert Park
in Melbourne
. Prior to its inclusion in the World
Championship it was held annually from 1928 to 1984 at various
venues in Australia. It was a centrepiece of the
Tasman Series from 1964 to 1969 and again in
1972 and was a round of the
Australian Drivers'
Championship in a number of years from 1957 to 1983.
It 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, before moving to Melbourne
in 1996.
The Australian Grand Prix is the second round of the Championship,
having been the first race of each year, excluding
2006, since the event moved to
Melbourne. During its years in Adelaide, the Australian Grand Prix
was the final round of the Championship, replacing the
Portuguese Grand Prix in that respect.
As the final round of the season, the Grand Prix hosted a handful
of memorable Grand Prix, most notably the
1986 and
1994 event which saw those
respective titles decided.
Lex Davison and Michael Schumacher are the most
successful drivers in the 82 year history of the event each taking
four victories each while Ferrari
and McLaren
have been
the most successful constructors with ten victories each, their
success stretching well back into the pre-Formula One history of
the race. Rubens
Barrichello and
Giancarlo
Fisichella are the only drivers to have started every single
race since it returned to the inner Melbourne street circuit, which
was used previously in the 1950s.
In November 2006 investment company ING became the naming rights
sponsor of the Australian Grand Prix in a three-year deal.
History
Pre-war
While an
event called the Australian Grand Prix is believed to have been
held in 1927 near Sydney, it is generally held that the Australian
Grand Prix began as the 100
Miles Road Race held at the original Phillip
Island
road circuit in 1928. The original race was
won by
Arthur Waite in
what was effectively an entry supported by the
Austin Motor Company driving a modified
Austin 7. For eight years races, first
called the Australian Grand Prix in
1929, continued on the
rectangular dirt road circuit. This was the era of the Australian
'special', mechanical concoctions of disparate chassis and engine
that were every bit as capable as the Grand Prix machines imported
from Europe.
For all the ingenuity of the early Australian
mechanic-racers Bugattis
dominated the results, taking four consecutive wins
from 1929-1932. The last Phillip Island race was in 1935 and
the title lapsed for three years.
An AGP style event was held on Boxing Day, 1936 at the South
Australian town of Victor
Harbor
for a centennial South Australian Grand Prix before
the Australian Grand Prix title was revived in 1938 for the grand opening of
what would become one of the world's most famous race tracks,
Mount
Panorama
just outside of the semi-rural town of Bathurst
. Only just completed, with a tar seal for
the circuit still a year away, the race was won by Englishman
Peter Whitehead
racing a new
voiturette ERA B-Type that was just too fast
for the locally developed machinery.
One more race was held
at a giant South Australian road circuit near the town of Lobethal
in 1939
before the country was plunged into World
War II.
Post-war
In the immediate post-war era racing was sparse with competitors
using pre-war cars with supplies cobbled together around the
rationing of fuel and tyres. Mount Panorama held the first post-war
Grand Prix in
1947,
beginning a rotational system fostered by the newly formed
Australian governing body,
CAMS.
A mixture of
stripped-down production sports cars and Australian 'specials' were
to take victories as the race travelled amongst temporary converted
airfield circuits and street circuits like Point Cook
, Leyburn
, Nuriootpa and Narrogin
before, on the races return to Mount Panorama in
1952, the way to the
future was pointed by Doug Whiteford
racing a newly imported Talbot-Lago
Formula One car to victory.
Grand Prix
machinery had already been filtering through in the shape of older
Maserati
and OSCA and smaller
Cooper but had yet to prove to be
superior to the locally developed cars. The end of the
Australian 'specials' was coming, but the magnificent
Maybach-based series of specials driven exuberantly
by
Stan Jones would give
many hope for the next few years.
Lex Davison, who for several years would
experiment with sports car engines in smaller Formula 2 chassis, took his first of four
victories in a Jaguar engined Formula 2
HWM in 1954, while the previous year Whiteford won his
third and final Grand Prix as for the first time racing cars
thundered around the streets surrounding the Albert Park
Lake in inner Melbourne. That circuit, which for four brief years
gave Australia the strongest taste of the grandeur surrounding
European Grand Prix racing, was 40 years later very much modified,
used to host the
1996
Australian Grand Prix as the modern Formula One world
championship venue.
The Grand Prix returned to Albert Park in
1956, Melbourne's
Olympic Games year to play host to a
group of visiting European teams, led by Stirling Moss and the factory Maserati racing team who brought a fleet of 250F Grand Prix cars and 300S sports racing cars. Moss won the
Grand Prix from Maserati team mate
Jean
Behra. That 1956 race would inspire the next great era of the
Grand Prix.
Tasman Formula
The growing influence of engineer-drivers
Jack Brabham and a couple of years behind him
New Zealander
Bruce McLaren would
transform the race. Brabham, who first won the Grand Prix in
1955 in an obsolete
sports-bodied Cooper T40 Bristol he had brought home from his first
foray into English racing, would test new developments for Cooper
during the European winter, beginning a flood of Cooper-Climax
Grand Prix machinery into Australia and New Zealand before Brabham
started building his
own cars, as well as
the appearance of Lotus chassis as well, finally killing off the
Australian 'specials'. With European Formula One restricted by the
1.5 litre regulations and big powerful 2.5 litre Australian cars
were tremendously attractive to the European teams and when
BRM Grand Prix team toured Australia during the
summer of 1962, the seed grew that became the
Tasman Series.
The top European Formula One teams and drivers raced the European
winters in Australia and New Zealand from
1963 to
1969 playing host to a golden age
for racing in the region for which the Australian Grand Prix (and
the New Zealand Grand Prix) became jewels of the summer. The
popularity of the Tasman formulae was directly responsible for
1966s 'return to power' in Formula One, and having spent years
developing with
Repco the Brabham cars and
eventually the Oldsmobile based
Repco V8s in
his Brabhams in the Tasman series gave Jack Brabham the opportunity
to unexpectedly dominate Formula One with a ready-proven
lightweight car that left Ferrari and the British 'garagistes'
struggling with their heavy, technically fragile or underpowered
cars until the appearance of the Lotus-Cosworth late in 1967.
The stars of the era all visited the Tasman Series,
Jim Clark,
John
Surtees,
Timmy Mayer,
Phil Hill,
Jackie
Stewart,
Graham Hill,
Jochen Rindt,
Pedro Rodriguez,
Piers Courage, leading teams from
Cooper, Lotus, Lola, BRM, even the four wheel drive
Ferguson P99 and finally, Ferrari, racing
against the local stars, Brabham, McLaren,
Denny Hulme,
Chris
Amon,
Frank Gardner,
Frank Matich,
Leo Geoghegan and
Kevin Bartlett.
Brabham won the Grand
Prix three times, McLaren twice, Clark twice, the second was his
last major victory before his untimely death, winning a highly
entertaining battle with Chris Amon at the 1968 Australian Grand Prix at
Sandown
Raceway
. Graham Hill won
the 1966 race with Amon
winning the final Tasman formulae race in 1969 leading home Ferrari team
mate Derek Bell for a
dominant 1-2 at Lakeside
Raceway
.
Formula 5000
By the end of the decade European teams were increasingly reluctant
to commit to the Tasman Series in the face of longer home seasons,
but also having to develop 2.5 litre versions of their 3.0 litre F1
engines. Local Tasman cars were declining as well and after
originally opting a 2.0 litre version of Tasman to be the future of
the Australia Grand Prix, the overwhelming support for the already
well established
Formula 5000 saw
natural selection force
CAMS' hand.
For the first half of the 70s, the Tasman Series continued purely
as a local series for Formula 5000 racers, but by 1976 the
Australian and New Zealand legs fractured apart and the Australian
Grand Prix separated from the remnants and became a stand-alone
race once more. During this era the former Tasman stars, Matich,
Geoghegan and Bartlett would continue on as a new generation of
drivers emerged, some like
Garrie
Cooper (
Elfin) and
Graham McRae developing their own cars while
others like
Max Stewart,
John McCormack and
Alfredo Costanzo using European built cars,
mostly
Lolas. Matich won two Grand Prix is
his own cars before Stewart and McRae each took a pair of wins.
Towards the end of the 70s the race again became a home to
returning European based antipodeans like
Alan Jones and
Larry Perkins with
Warwick Brown winning the 1977 race, while the
previous year touring car racer
John Goss completed a remarkable
double, becoming the first and only driver to win the Grand Prix
and the
Bathurst 1000.
Calder Park
Declining economy and the dominance of the local scene by
Group C touring cars towards the latter
part of the 70s saw Formula 5000 gradually fall out of favour. By
1980 the decision to replace was once again imminent however the
form of
Alan Jones in
Formula One saw entrepreneur
Bob Jane seize
an opportunity to bring Formula One back as the Grand Prix Formula.
The
1980 extravaganza held at
Jane's Calder Park
Raceway
saw a combined field of Formula One and Formula
5000 padded out with the Australised version of Formula Atlantic cars, Formula
Pacific. The newly crowned world champion, Jones swept the
field aside in his
Williams-Cosworth
but with only two F1 cars entering and the continuing
disintegration of F5000 saw Jane concentrate the next four Grands
Prix on the Formula Pacific (later rebadged as Formula Mondial)
category and importing Formula One drivers to race the locals in
fields almost entirely made up of
Ralt RT4s.
Roberto Moreno dominated this era
winning three of the four races, ceding only the
1982 race to
Alain Prost. Jane's attempt to bring the World
Championship to Calder Park ultimately failed as F1 would be
tempted away by a far more attractive option.
Formula One
Australia
became part of the F1 world championship in 1985 with the last race
of the season held on the street circuit in Adelaide. The Adelaide Street Circuit, which held its last Formula One race in 1995, has often been stated as being
one of, if not, the greatest street circuits in the world.
Whenever the teams came to Adelaide they enjoyed the party
atmosphere.
The Melbourne era
In 1993 prominent Melbourne businessman Mr
Ron Walker began working with the then 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 a South
Australian election) that the race would be shifted to a rebuilt
Albert
Park street 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, who
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
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 Aquatc Centre (scene of many Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games
events) being the centre piece and best known of the revitalised
facilities.
The idea of a permanent racing circuit has never really been
addressed, but there is much speculation that the real reason for a
street circuit is to provide a distinctive backdrop for television
- a permanent race circuit would be unidentifiable and, from the
perspective of the Formula One organisers, may as well be held in
Europe at much lesser cost and inconvenience to them.
In any case, a
substantial number of people do embrace (and attend) the race at
the Melbourne
Grand Prix Circuit.
Demonstration event held in Melbourne
just before the start of the 2005 Grand Prix
Nick Heidfeld and Nico Rosberg at
Corner 6 of the Albert Park Circuit, Melbourne
Bernie Ecclestone, the 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 is 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 Olympics, was a driving force
behind Melbourne’s motivation to wrest the Australian Grand Prix
away from Adelaide.
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 within the
park. The circuit is renowned as being a smooth and high-speed test
for Formula One teams and drivers, and its characteristics are
similar to the only other street circuit set in a public park
currently used for a race in the Formula One World Championship,
the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, Canada.
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 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 weren’t 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 of 1996 and
1997.
The move of the Australian Grand Prix to Melbourne saw a change in
the time of year that the F1 teams and personnel made their annual
voyage Down Under. Adelaide, for each of its 11 years, was the
final race of the F1 season, usually in October or November, while
Melbourne has been the first race of the season in every year since
1996 with the exception of 2006, when it was the third race of the
year to allow for the Commonwealth Games to take place in the city.
As such, the Albert Park circuit has seen the Formula One debuts of
many drivers in the last decade. 1997 World Champion Jacques
Villeneuve made his race debut in Melbourne’s first year of 1996,
and became one of three men to secure pole position in his maiden
Grand Prix. Other prominent names to debut in Melbourne are
two-time World Champion Fernando Alonso and one-time champions Kimi
Räikkönen (both in 2001) and Lewis Hamilton (2007), Australia’s
only current F1 driver, Mark Webber, also made his debut there in
2002.
As part of celebrations for the 10th running of the event at Albert
Park in 2005, Webber drove his Williams F1 car over the Sydney
Harbour Bridge in a promotional event, and the Melbourne city
streets hosted a parade of F1 machinery and V8 Supercars,
Australia’s highest-profile domestic motor sport category.
Races in Melbourne
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 re-start, ensured the first race in Melbourne gained
widespread coverage. The race was won by Williams’ Damon Hill.
2008 Race Winner Lewis Hamilton on the
Podium with Nick Heidfeld
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 Mika Häkkinen and Coulthard
lapping the entire field en route to a dominant 1-2 finish. The
result was clouded by controversy when Coulthard pulled over with
two laps remaining to allow Häkkinen to win, honouring a pre-race
agreement between the pair that whoever made it to the first corner
in the lead on lap one would be allowed to win.Ferrari won its
first Grand Prix in Melbourne in
1999, but it
wasn’t with team number one Michael Schumacher. Irishman Eddie
Irvine took his maiden victory after the all-conquering McLarens of
Häkkinen and Coulthard retired before half-distance. Schumacher
broke his Melbourne drought the following year when he headed a
dominant Ferrari 1-2 with new teammate Rubens Barrichello.
The
2001 event, won by Michael Schumacher, was
marked by tragedy when volunteer marshal Graham Beveridge was
killed after a high-speed accident involving Ralf Schumacher and
Jacques Villeneuve on lap five. Villeneuve’s B.A.R rode up across
the back of Schumacher’s Williams and crashed into the fence,
behind which Beveridge was standing.
The start of the
2002 race saw pole-sitter
Barrichello and Williams’ Schumacher come together at Turn One in a
spectacular accident that saw 11 of the 22 cars eliminated before
the end of the opening lap. Michael Schumacher dominated thereafter
to post a third straight Melbourne win, but his achievements were
overshadowed by the fifth place of Australian Mark Webber on his
Formula One debut. Webber, in an underpowered and underfunded
Minardi, had to recover from a botched late pit stop and resist the
challenges of Toyota’s Mika Salo in the closing stages, and took to
the podium after the race with Australian team owner Paul Stoddart
in one of Melbourne’s more memorable Grand Prix moments.
The next year,
2003, saw Coulthard again win for
McLaren in a race held in variable conditions. Normal service was
resumed in
2004 with the Ferraris of Schumacher
and Barrichello running rampant – within two laps of Friday
practice, Schumacher had obliterated the Albert Park lap record,
and sailed to a crushing win.
In
2005, the race was won by Renault’s Giancarlo
Fisichella after a storm during Saturday qualifying produced a
topsy-turvy grid. Barrichello and Fisichella’s teammate Fernando
Alonso came through the field from 11th and 13th on the grid
respectively to join pole-sitter Fisichella on the podium. In
2006, Alonso took his first Australian win in an
accident-marred race that featured four safety car periods.
In
2007 Kimi Räikkönen in his first race for
Ferrari, while Lewis Hamilton became first driver in 11 years to
finish on the podium in debut, as he was 3rd behind his team-mate
Alonso. Hamilton won the
2008 which had three
safety car periods. In
2009 Jenson Button took the
victory, driving for Brawn GP, which was having first race after
Ross Brawn had bought the team following Honda withdrawal from
Formula One.
Notable Australian Grands Prix
- 1986: Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet in a Williams-Honda and
Alain Prost, in a comparatively
underpowered McLaren
, were competing for the drivers' title.
Mansell needed only third to guarantee the title, whilst Prost and
Piquet needed to win and for Mansell to finish lower than third to
take the title. Whilst comfortably in the top three with a few laps
to go, Mansell's Williams suffered a spectacular mechanical
failure, with a rear tyre puncture at very high speed near the end
of the main straight creating a huge shower of sparks as the floor
of the vehicle dragged along the bitumen surface. Mansell fought to
control the violently veering car and steered it to a safe stop.
Prost took the lead, as Mansell's teammate Piquet had pitted as a
pre-cautionary measure, and won the race and the championship.
Prost himself came incredibly close to failure, as his vehicle
coasted to a halt on his victory lap, out of fuel.
- 1991: The race was
notable for being held in extremely wet and tricky conditions and
the race was eventually stopped on lap 14 of the scheduled 82 and
Ayrton Senna was declared the winner.
This race has the record of the shortest ever Formula One race as
it only lasted 52 kilometres/24 minutes.
- 1994: Following his
win at the Japanese Grand
Prix, Damon Hill was now one point
behind championship leader Michael
Schumacher. Nigel Mansell was on
pole but a poor start resulted in the
two championship rivals Hill and Schumacher battling for the lead.
But on lap 36, Schumacher went off the track, a result of
oversteer, and this allowed Hill to catch up with Schumacher and
take the inside line for the next corner. Schumacher turned in on
Hill's Williams (whether on purpose or
accidentally remains unknown) which sent the Benetton up on two wheels and into the tyre
barrier, Schumacher retiring on the spot. Hill came out of the
incident with a broken wishbone on his front-left suspension, he
pitted and retired from the race, handing the title to Schumacher.
The sister Williams of Nigel Mansell went onto win the race,
becoming the oldest Grand Prix winner since Jack Brabham in
1970.
- 2001
- The 2001 race saw Michael
Schumacher take pole position and win the race and three
drivers, Fernando Alonso; Kimi Räikkönen and Juan Pablo Montoya, all made their
Formula One debuts during this race. The race, however, was struck
by tragedy in when a flying tyre from a crash between Williams' Ralf
Schumacher and BAR's
Jacques Villeneuve flew through a
gap in the barrier fence and killed a volunteer track marshal,
Graham Beveridge, who was 52 years old.
- 2002
- The 2002 event saw the best performance by an Australian driver
when Mark Webber, in the perennially
uncompetitive Minardi, took advantage of the
misfortune of other competitors, after a first lap pile up
eliminated 9 cars, to finish an unlikely fifth, holding off a
fast-closing Mika Salo in a much faster
Toyota. He and the Australian-born
team owner Paul Stoddart became
instant national celebrities well beyond the motor racing world,
the minor placing receiving far more attention in Australia than
Michael Schumacher's win.
- 2008
- Lewis Hamilton won from pole in a chaotic race that featured 3
safety car periods. None of the six Ferrari powered cars made the
finish in the blistering heat, and there were also the fewest
number of finishers in a Formula One race since the 1996 Spanish Grand Prix.
- 2009
- Jenson Button
and Rubens Barrichello scored a
1-2 finish for Brawn
GP
in the team's début race. The team was
formed from the remnants of Honda Racing
F1 who had withdrawn from the sport following the 2008 season.
The race ended with Button, who had led from the start, leading the
field over the line after the safety car had been deployed with 3
laps remaining following a crash between Sebastian Vettel and Robert Kubica, who had been fighting for 2nd.
Toyota's Jarno
Trulli was given a 25 second penalty for passing Lewis Hamilton
for 3rd place under yellow flags during that safety car period,
which promoted Hamilton into that position. However, Hamilton was
later disqualified and docked his points for "deliberately
misleading stewards", with Trulli reinstated in third. The results earned by
Brawn, Williams, and Toyota
were awarded, despite an appeal being held two weeks later against
a ruling on the legality of the teams' diffuser design. The
outcome of the appeal was in favour of the teams and that their
diffusers were legal under the new rules and there were no changes
to the results of the race.
Recent attendance
Celebrity Challenge, 2008 GP
An area
of recent debate regarding the move of the Australian Grand Prix to
Melbourne is the dwindling crowd attendances. Crowd
numbers have not peaked since the Melbourne record of 401,000 in
1996. This has resulted in many questioning whether the event is
bringing the economic benefits first promised when it was announced
Melbourne would host the race in 1993. A possible reason for the
drop in attendance is that since the Grand Prix has moved to
Melbourne, the race organisers have significantly decreased the
number of support events at the Grand Prix. Instead of using the
event to showcase Australian motor sport, many classes featured in
the past have been replaced by celebrity and corporate sponsored
events. For instance, while the Grand Prix Corporation has used the
presence of Australian driver, Mark Webber, as an advertising draw
card for the event, the class in which Mark first started coming to
attention, Formula Ford, was dropped from the 2006 programme.
Another factor possibly influencing the crowds in 2007 was the
withdrawal of Australia's most popular domestic racing series,
V8 Supercar, a factor disputed by an
attendance drop of just 500.
In 2009, the global
financial crisis and higher unemployment was cited by Victorian
Premier John Brumby as a
reason for a slight drop in crowds.
- 2009 - 286,900
- 2008 - 303,000
- 2007 - 301,000
- 2006 - 301,500
- 2005 - 359,000
- 1996 - 401,000
Future
Beyond 2010, the Victorian Government announced that Melbourne
would retain the Australian Grand Prix until at least 2015. The
race starting time will be moved to 5pm in order to satisfy Bernie
Ecclestone's ultimatum earlier this year, stating to the
Sunday
Mail that the only way Melbourne would retain the race is a
move to a night race in order to increase European television
audiences. However the later start will not result in a 'night
race' as Geoscience Australia has forecast dusk for 29th of March
2009 at 7:45pm
Sponsors
Mitsubishi Australian
Grand Prix
1985
Foster's Australian Grand Prix
1986–1993,
2002–2006
Adelaide Australian Grand Prix 1994
EDS Australian
Grand Prix
1995
Transurban Australian Grand Prix
1996
Qantas Australian Grand Prix
1997–2001
ING Australian Grand Prix
2007-2009
Australian Grand Prix
2010
Winners
Multiple winners (drivers)
Wins which did not count towards the Formula One World
Championship are indicated by a pink background.
| Number of wins |
Driver |
Years Won |
| 4 |
Lex Davison |
1954, 1957, 1958, 1961 |
| Michael Schumacher |
2000,
2001, 2002, 2004 |
| 3 |
Bill Thompson |
1930, 1932, 1933 |
| Doug Whiteford |
1950, 1952, 1953 |
| Jack Brabham |
1955, 1963, 1964 |
| Graham McRae |
1972, 1973, 1978 |
| Roberto Moreno |
1981, 1983, 1984 |
| Alain Prost |
1982, |
1986, 1988 |
| 2 |
Les Murphy |
1935, 1937 |
| Bruce McLaren |
1962, 1965 |
| Frank Matich |
1970, 1971 |
| Max Stewart |
1974, 1975 |
| Gerhard Berger |
1987,
1992 |
| Ayrton Senna |
1991,
1993 |
| Damon Hill |
1995,
1996 |
| David Coulthard |
1997,
2003 |
Multiple winners (constructors)
- Embolded constructors are still competing in the Formula
One championship
| Number of wins |
Constructor |
Years Won |
| 10 |
Ferrari |
1957, 1958, 1969, 1987, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2007 |
McLaren |
1970, 1986, 1988, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1997, 1998, 2003, 2008 |
| 6 |
Williams |
1980, 1985, 1989, 1994, 1995, 1996 |
| 5 |
Cooper |
1955, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1965 |
| 4 |
Bugatti |
1929, 1930, 1931, 1932 |
| MG |
1935, 1937, 1939, 1947 |
| Lola |
1974, 1975, 1977, 1979 |
| Ralt |
1981, 1982, 1983, 1984 |
| 2 |
Talbot-Lago |
1952, 1953 |
| Maserati |
1956, 1959 |
| Brabham |
1963, 1964 |
| BRM |
1966, 1967 |
| Matich |
1971, 1976 |
| McRae |
1973, 1978 |
Renault |
2005, 2006 |
By year
Events which were not part of the Formula One World
Championship are indicated by a pink background.
- * From 1932 to 1948 the winner was determined on a handicap
basis.
- + The 1937 event was staged as the "South Australian Centenary
Grand Prix" on 26 December 1936.
- # The 1928 event was officialy known as the "100 Miles Road
Race"
Footnote
- The Adelaide Review : Archives
- Circuit Background
- Australia aims to keep late March date
- Aust GP enjoys healthy crowds - ABC News (Australian
Broadcasting Corporation)
- Albert Park F1 Circuit Crowds
- Australian Stadiums :: Australian F1 GP (d4)
- 2008
FORMULA 1 ING Australian Grand Prix
- Green light for dusk Formula One Grand Prix at
Albert Park
- Melbourne Grand Prix's seven-year deal
- Graham Howard, After 6,201 miles and 49 races, the 50th AGP
marked the end of an era, Australian Motor Racing Year, 1985/86,
page 33
- The Official 50-race history of the Australian Grand Prix,
1986, page 82
- John B. Blanden, A History of Australian Grand Prix 1928-1939
(1981), page 1
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