Australia: Melbourne Track Guide

The circuit is remarkably unchanged, still weaving around the park lake, although now in a clock-wise direction, with the old circuit running along the back of the pit area.

Albert Park is very popular with the drivers. The 5.303km track features a mixture of short straights and slow to medium speed corners, and requires the car set-up to have a balance of good traction and stability under braking, as well as being aerodynamically efficient. Despite the lengthy 'straight' at the back of the circuit, Albert Park remains a relatively high downforce track.

The circuit uses the normal roads of Albert Park as the basis of its layout, so the surface is normally quite dirty when the cars start running on Friday. It cleans up quickly however and lap times fall as rubber goes down in the corners. The generally smooth surface means tyre wear is not an issue, but getting tyres to work effectively certainly is. For this reason Bridgestone will be bringing the medium and Soft tyres from their range. With lower than optimum downforce levels, thanks to those straights, getting the power down through the Bridgestone tyres will be tricky following the abolition of traction control.

The weather in Melbourne is expected to be warm, with temperatures around the 24°C mark, and the entire Grand Prix weekend is forecast to be dry.

Bumpy, hot and fast, this circuit makes mechanical reliability an issue for many teams. For this reason, the Australian Grand Prix has gained a reputation for being a finishers' race.

Last year's event did not go well for the Honda Racing F1 team. Rubens Barrichello lead the way in qualifying, lining up two places ahead of Jenson Button who had qualified 13th. At the start of the race, Button got involved in an incident with Vettel, putting him out of the race. Rubens Barrichello finished the race in an impressive sixth place, but was later disqualified for exiting the pitlane under a red light.

Previously, the team have fared reasonably well, with Jacques Villeneuve and Ricardo Zonta finishing in fourth and sixth places respectively back in 2000, while Jenson Button finished in the points in the 2003 race, securing sixth place for the team.