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Event Information:
Melbourne is the home of the
Australian Grand Prix, a motor race
held annually and is held to be the
pinnacle of motor racing in
Australia. The Grand Prix is the
oldest surviving motor racing
competition held in Australia having
been held 75 times since it was
first run at Phillip Island in 1928.
Since 1985 the race has been a round
of the FIA Formula One World
Championship. It is presently held
at the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit
at Albert Park in Melbourne. Prior
to its inclusion in the World
Championship it was held at a
multitude of venues in every state
of Australia. It was a centre piece
of the Tasman Series between 1964
and 1972 and was a round of the
Australian Drivers' Championship on
many occasions between 1957 and
1983. It became part of the Formula
One World Championship in 1985 and
was held at the Adelaide Street
Circuit in Adelaide, South Australia
from that year to 1995, before
moving to Melbourne in 1996.
Albert
Park, within easy reach of the
Melbourne central business district,
became home to the Australian Grand
Prix in Melbourne. A 16-turn
circuit, which measures 5.3
kilometres in its current guise, was
built utilising a combination of
public roads and a car park within
the park. The circuit is renowned as
being a smooth and high-speed test
for Formula One teams and drivers.
Its characteristics are similar to
the only other street circuit set in
a public park currently used in the
Formula One World Championship, the
Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in
Montreal which hosts the Canadian
Grand Prix.
The
move of the Australian Grand Prix to
Melbourne saw a change in the time
of year that the F1 teams and
personnel made their annual voyage
Down Under. Adelaide, for each of
its 11 years, was the final race of
the F1 season, usually in October or
November, while Melbourne has been
the first race of the season in
every year since 1996 with the
exception of 2006, when it was the
third race of the year to allow for
the Commonwealth Games to take place
in the city, and 2010. As such, the
Albert Park circuit has seen the
Formula One debuts of many drivers
in the last decade.
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