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While the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix might be centred around Sunday’s race, there is no doubting the importance of practice and qualifying as the grid is set. This is The Roar‘s guide to the pre-race sessions at Albert Park on Friday and Saturday.
Practice is being run in the same format as it has been for the past couple of Formula 1 seasons, with three sessions over the two days.
The first two practice sessions will be run on Saturday, with both being an hour and a half in duration. The third has a reduced length of an hour and is run during the early afternoon on Sunday as a final tune-up before the all-important qualifying sessions.
| Session | Day | Start (AEDT) | Finish (AEDT) | Duration |
| Practice 1 | Friday | 12:00 PM | 1:30 PM | 1 hour and 30 minutes |
| Practice 2 | Friday | 4:00 PM | 5:30 PM | 1 hour and 30 minutes |
| Practice 3 | Saturday | 2:00 PM | 3:00 PM | 1 hour |
Qualifying will see three sessions that take place over the course of an hour, running back-to-back-to-back until the grid is complete with short intervals between each session.
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Times are reset for each new session as well so no existing fastest laps will carry over to the next round, meaning drivers will have to do three fast laps if they want pole.
Qualifying 1 runs for 18 minutes with every car taking the track. The fastest 16 drivers will advance while the remaining positions are locked in on the grid.
The second session runs for 15 minutes and will cut the field down to 10 cars, with the slowest six racers from the session taking their place in the middle of the grid. The final session sees an all-out, 12-minute dash for the pole position.
| Session | Day | Start (AEDT) | Finish (AEDT) | Duration |
| Qualifying 1 | Saturday | 5:00 PM | 5:18 PM | 18 minutes |
| Qualifying 2 | Saturday | 5:25 PM | 5:40 PM | 15 minutes |
| Qualifying 3 | Saturday | 5:45 PM | 5:57 PM | 12 minutes |
*Note – Qualifying sessions start and finish times are indicative only and may change.
Fox Sports have the rights to every single session of every single round of the Formula One season, and the entire Melbourne Grand Prix weekend will be live with the pay TV network releasing a 24-hour channel for the event, including all sessions and the race itself.
If you want to stream Foxtel’s coverage then you will need to use the Foxtel Play or Foxtel Go apps which allow users to stream Foxtel channels.
Foxtel Go is available for free if you already have an existing Foxtel service. Foxtel Play is better for those who are just looking to access live-streaming services rather than have a traditional installation.
Foxtel Play has a two-week free trial available to new users, and after that costs a monthly subscription fee.
Network Ten will also cover the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix. They will be showing the first two practice sessions on ONE HD on Friday, but Saturday and Sunday’s action will be on their main Ten channel.
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