Albert Park Circuit

The Albert Park Circuit is a street circuit around Albert Park Lake in the Melbourne suburb of Albert Park, just south of the city centre. It is made up of ordinary public roads and is driven clockwise. The road sections were rebuilt before the first race in 1996, so the surface is comparatively smooth for a street track. Most of the racing infrastructure is put up each year before the Grand Prix weekend and taken down again afterwards. Outside that period, most of the track can be driven by ordinary road vehicles, with a speed limit of generally 40 km/h.

The circuit combines medium and high speeds, and drivers say the evenly spaced corners make it easy to learn. However, there are hardly any real straights, which makes overtaking difficult. The grass and gravel run-off areas are rebuilt every year, and concrete barriers are put up each year along Lakeside Drive, where the lake leaves no room.

Motor racing at Albert Park goes back to the 1950s. An earlier version, 5.029 km long and run anti-clockwise, staged several race meetings between 1953 and 1958, including the Australian Grand Prix in 1953 and 1956. Stirling Moss won the 1956 race in a Maserati 250F. The November 1958 meeting was the last on that layout, which closed shortly afterwards.

Albert Park has hosted the Formula One World Championship since 1996, when the lap measured 5.303 km. The Grand Prix was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The track was reworked for 2022: the pit lane and several corners were widened, one corner was significantly changed and two corners were removed. This created a longer fast section with more places to overtake. The lap now measures 5.278 km and has 14 corners. Albert Park is part of the 2026 calendar.