Punters paying up to A$5995 for three-day pass got their money's worth with on-track pandemonium that saw a total of eight drivers crash out of the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park in Melbourne. Photo / Getty Images
Punters paying up to A$5995 for three-day pass got their money's worth with on-track pandemonium that saw a total of eight drivers crash out of the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park in Melbourne. Photo / Getty Images
The latest round of the world’s fastest sport in 10 quickfire stats.
36 per cent
The increase in total attendance over the four days of this year’s Melbourne Grand Prix (441,631) and the last race before the pandemic in 2019 (324,100). The boost in ticket sales is a worldwide phenomenon,which pundits put down to one thing: The hit Netflix series Drive to Survive.
Kylie Minogue poses for a photo with Red Bull Racing Team principal Christian Horner on the grid. Netflix's Drive to Survive has revived the Grand Prix's celebrity pull. Photo / Getty Images
The price of a top-tier three-day ticket to the Paddock Club, the corporate entertainment areas,with perks including pit lane walks, and five-a-time walks through the “the Paddock” or the area between the pit lanes and the teams’ headquarters, where you can often encounter drives or managers.
For the cheap seats, a four-day pass went for A$250.
Practice day views from The Paddock Club.
A$160 million
The amount that Victorian taxpayers had to pay on corporate hospitality and track upgrades to head-off a rival hosting bid from New South Wales, according to a report by The Australian.
Above and below: Teams put on a show during the practice day pit walk.
A$171 million
The boost that the 2022 Australian Grand Prix provided to Victoria’s economy, according to an Ernst & Young report.
The FIA safety car leads Mercedes' George Russell and the rest of the field during the F1 Grand Prix of Australia at Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit on April 02, 2023 in Melbourne, Australia. Photo / Getty Images
Four
The number of restarts after various crashes - including scenes of utter pandemonium after the third restart, on lap 56 of 58, which took out four cars at once - including Alpine team-mates Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon crashing into each other. It was probably frustrating for motorsport purists, but hugely entertaining for everyone else.
10 zillion
The estimated number of posters signed by Daniel Ricciardo, the irrepressible Australian driver who was dumped by McLaren but onsite with Red Bull in Melbourne as the team’s reserve driver.
Racing legend Sir Jackie Stewart walks The Paddock. Photo / Getty Images
US$135 million
The budget cap for each of the 10 teams, down from US$140m last year and US$145m in 2021. The cap has been progressively reduced to make Formula 1 more competitive.
It includes all costs associated with a car, and most personnel, but excludes driver salaries and the wages of each team’s three highest-paid staffers (no mere footnote, given the winner in Melbourne, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen is being paid a reported US$55m this year, according to ESPN and sports business specialist Spotrac).
Mid-pack: Oscar Piastri of Australia driving the (81) McLaren MCL60 Mercedes leads Zhou Guanyu of China driving the (24) Alfa Romeo F1 C43 Ferrari during the F1 Grand Prix of Australia at Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit on April 02, 2023 in Melbourne, Australia. Photo / Getty Images
Mid-ranked drivers earn US$5m to US$10m per season, while relative newcomers Yuki Tsunoda and Logan Sargeant are on US$1m. At bottom of the heap, relative necomers Red Bull team principal Christian Horner is on reported US$12m.
Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen, who would go on to win the Melbourne Grand Prix, goofs off in The Paddock. Photo / Getty Images
US$7 million
The amount that Red Bull was fined last year by the sport’s governing body, the FIA, after breaching the budget cap by US2m in 2021. Red Bull was hit with a 10 percent reduction in its aerodynamic wind-tunnel testing allowance for 12 months.
Ferrari's Carlos Sainz plays swing ball in The Paddock. Photo Getty Images
10
The number global partners. Formula 1 used to be synonymous with brands like Marlboro and Martini. These days, the roster of F1 partners is thick with tech names, including AWS, Salesforce and Lenovo - which is also F1′s official technology partner for laptops and high-performance servers. Each global partner pays at least US$20m per year to be associated with Formula 1.
Krystina Emmanouilides, who heads the Alfa Romeo Orlen team's 10-strong aerodynamic's unit. Photo / Supplied
15
The number of drivers in the all-women F1 Academy series, which launched this year in a bid to foster a wider pool of talent in a male-dominated competition. Lenovo guests in Melbourne also heard from Krystina Emmanouilides, a computational fluid dynamics engineer (or “air whisperer” leads a team of 10 in Alfa Romeo’s aerodynamics unit. Emmanouilides said - a local whose school had to shut for two days during the Grand Prix because it was inside the boundary of the Albert Park circuit - said “When I was younger, there wasn’t even much information on how to get into F1, let alone other female engineers I had access to.” Now she’s trying to change that as one of several ambassadors for the FIA’s Girls on Track programme to foster young female talent. “I don’t want to leave F1 until I walk through the doors and work and see a more equal workforce,” Emmanouilides said. That might take a while, but she’s already having a positive impact on the sport - and on Alfa Romeo, which finished in the points in Melbourne as Zhou Guanyu came in tenth.
Mercedes' Sir Lewis Hamilton in The Paddock. Photo / Getty Images
3.2 seconds
The amount of time it took Lewis Hamilton to literally sprint across The Paddock. Maybe he was late for the first practice run, which was about to kick off. Maybe he was a bit over the corporate hospitality.
