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All the pre-season hype and chatter has at last led to this; Formula One returns for another season of high-speed drama and intense rivalries, starting off today with the Australian Grand Prix. Join The Roar for a live blog of the race from 4pm AEDT.
A new season begins at the 5.3km Albert Park semi-street circuit, where 58-laps will be contested to determine the winner of the Australian Grand Prix.
As per tyre regulations, Pirelli have brought three compounds of their dry-tyre range being the soft, supersoft and ultrasoft – with the drivers required to use at least two of the three varieties during the race.
New for Formula One in 2018 is the restriction for teams on power-unit usage, with a mere three permitted to be used before grid penalties begin to be applied.
This’ll also be the first race that the Halo head protection device will be in use, with its implementation already having triggered a change in the positioning of the start lights for better visibility.
Lewis Hamilton marched to an imperious sixth pole position during qualifying, putting daylight between himself and Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen, who himself was only a hundredth ahead of teammate Sebastian Vettel.
Title protagonists Hamilton and Vettel both share two wins apiece at this venue, with Kimi Räikkönen the only other driver with multiple wins here. The Finn’s last win in Formula One in fact came in Australia back in 2013.
Aussie Daniel Ricciardo will start his home race from eighth on the grid, having copped that three-place grid penalty for driving slowly under red flag conditions during the second practice session earlier in the weekend.
Ricciardo’s demotion will put the two Haas cars of Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean in a handy position at the start, being elevated up to fifth and sixth.
Dry conditions are expected for the race, after the deluge early on Saturday having prompted fears for a wet race. Though regardless of rain or not, there is always a high probability of Safety Car intervention at this race.
The midfield scrum always provides flavour to the races and with the likes of Renault, McLaren, Force India and Haas closer to each other this season – there could be plenty of hustling going on in the top ten positions.
Though at the front, with the pace shown from Mercedes AMG and Hamilton – it is difficult to look past them to start off the new year on a winning note.
The mega 21-race season gets underway with the Australian Grand Prix, so tune in for live blog coverage on The Roar from 4pm as we welcome in another year of Formula One.
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