logo illustration during the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix 2025. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
Formula One statistics for Sunday's season-opening Australian Grand Prix at Melbourne's Albert Park:
Lap distance: 5.278km. Total distance: 306.124km (58 laps)
2024 pole position: Max Verstappen (Netherlands) Red Bull one minute 15.915 seconds.
2024 winner: Carlos Sainz (Spain) Ferrari
Race lap record: Sergio Perez (Mexico) Red Bull, 1:20.235, 2023.
NOTE: The circuit was shortened by 28 metres, with two turns taken out and seven corners modified, in 2022.
Start time: 3pm local time (5pm NZ time).
Australia
There are two Australian drivers in Sunday's race, McLaren's Oscar Piastri and Alpine rookie Jack Doohan.
No Australian driver has won a home grand prix.
This year's race will be the 28th at Albert Park, and 39th in Australia. The Australian round was held in Adelaide, as the season-ender, between 1985 and 1995. It starts the season for the first time since 2019.
Five current drivers have won in Melbourne: Fernando Alonso (2006), Lewis Hamilton (2008, 2015), Charles Leclerc (2022), Verstappen (2023) and Sainz (2024).
Ferrari great Michael Schumacher won a record four times in Australia.
Hamilton has been on pole in Melbourne a record eight times (2008, 2012, 2014-2019). He made his F1 debut in Australia with McLaren in 2007.
McLaren and Ferrari have both won 11 times in Australia, more than any other team.
The lowest-placed starter to win was Britain's Eddie Irvine from 11th in 1999 for Ferrari.
Eighteen of the 28 races in Melbourne have been won from the front row but only one of the 28 has seen the top three on the starting grid finish in the same order.
The track is similar to a street circuit, with turn three a good overtaking point, and drivers make 35 gear changes a lap with 71 percent of the time at full throttle. It has the shortest pit lane at 281 metres.
Liam Lawson (Red Bull Racing) at Albert Park in Melbourne ahead of the 2025 Australian Grand Prix. Photo: Clay Cross / Photosport
Championship
Four-times world champion Verstappen has led since the Spanish Grand Prix of May 2022, a span of 1,029 days. Verstappen has won the last two season-openers, both in Bahrain.
Race wins
Hamilton has a record 105 career victories from 356 starts.
Verstappen has won 63 grands prix and is third on the all-time list after Schumacher on 91.
Pole position
Hamilton has a record 104 career poles, his most recent in Hungary in 2023.
Rookies
Six drivers are starting a season for the first time: Andrea Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes), Oliver Bearman (Haas), Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber), Doohan, Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls) and Liam Lawson (Red Bull).
Milestone
Sunday's race marks the 20th anniversary of Red Bull's Formula One debut, and 10 years since Verstappen's debut with Toro Rosso.
Hamilton will be the 98th driver to race a Ferrari in Formula One, and the 78th factory driver.
Antonelli - at 18 years, six months and 18 days - will be the third youngest driver to start an F1 race.
- Reuters
