G’day mates! Welcome to Albert Park and the Australian Grand Prix for round three of the 2024 Formula One season.
We may have been racing here since our inception as a team, but it took until 2011 for us to really start cooking down under. Sebastian Vettel broke the jinx by taking a win. He followed that up with a P2 in 2012 and P3 in 2013. In more recent years we’ve seen Danny, Max and Checo all take the podium in Melbourne, with Max taking his first win there last year, and lets not forget Checo’s epic run from the pitlane all the way up to P5.
Before we head back to the outback (sort of…), let us refresh your memory on some of the key stats from Albert Park:
Now don’t forget, we’re back to our regularly scheduled programming this weekend so everything will kick off on Friday. Tune into Free Practice at 12:30PM local time to start the weekend the right way.
We are looking forward to racing in Melbourne this week. It is a very fast track layout now, which requires a good mix of getting straight line speed as well as decent grip in the corners, so it’s all about finding that middle ground. The recent resurfacing has made the track a lot smoother and fun to drive too, so we are looking forward to that. We also have softer compounds compared to last year, which will make it a bit more tricky for strategy, but hopefully means it is better for racing with more pit stops. Getting used to the jet lag is always a challenge down under, but it is always great to be in Melbourne regardless and amazing to see all the passionate racing fans coming to support!
It will be good to be back in Melbourne this week, it’s always a fun race week and the fans bring a great energy to the track. We have been working hard as a Team since Saudi to improve some areas we identified and I hope the car will be in a better window. I have been in Milton Keynes with my engineers and I am looking forward to seeing how we can perform with some minor changes. The car has felt competitive so far but Albert Park is a totally different test for the RB20 and it will be interesting to see how we match up. I think the field will be very competitive this weekend so it’s important we perform in qualifying to put us in a positive place come Sunday. Last year’s race here was a little crazy, so I hope it’s a slightly more straight forward weekend!
