Albert Park: The birthplace of champions

And across the 27 iterations of the Australian Grand Prix, those first steps towards the Formula 1® summit have happened in Melbourne.

From Albert Park’s first race in 1996, Melbourne has been the opening lap for some of the most legendary careers the sport has ever seen, and while the stories of several modern-day stars who started in Australia are yet to be written.

There’s a new generation desperate to make their mark in Melbourne this March.

No fewer than six drivers who debuted in Melbourne have become champions of the world, including three of the sport’s modern-day giants and superstars of different eras who have re-written the Formula 1® history books.

In 1996, as Melbourne hosted its first Grand Prix, it was the son of a gun Jacques Villeneuve who wasted little time in making his mark.

On debut, Villeneuve took Melbourne’s first pole position and led for 50 of the 58 laps before a late-race oil leak pulled the handbrake on his march to history.

His second-place finish was merely an entrée of what was to follow, crowned World Champion one year later, a feat no Canadian had managed before nor emulated since.

If Villeneuve’s rapid journey from debutant to Formula 1® champion seemed pre-ordained, the opposite could be said for the second world champion to get their F1® feet wet in Melbourne.

Jenson Button had barely left his teens when he touched down in Australia to make his F1 debut for Williams in 2000.

After a heavy practice crash and a back-row qualifying slot, the young Englishman retired from his first F1® race.

Button would have to wait until 2009 to win his first (and only) World Championship in an extraordinary season with Brawn GP; however, during Albert Park’s tenure as a Formula 1®host, only Sebastian Vettel and Michael Schumacher have been as triumphant as the beaming Brit.

One year after Button graduated as a Formula 1® sophomore, the season-opening driver photo on the Albert Park grid became one of the sport’s most famous.

Among the Formula 1® champions, race-winners and household names was a rookie class that, even now, is one of the strongest the sport has ever seen when Fernando Alonso and ‘the Iceman’ Kimi Raikkonen announced themselves to the world alongside Colombia’s Juan Pablo Montoya.

Throughout Formula 1® history, it’s arguable whether any rookie has arrived in Melbourne with greater expectations than Lewis Hamilton did in 2007. In a matter of a few hundred metres, Hamilton had somehow exceeded the stratospheric hype.

From fourth on the grid, Hamilton swept around the outside of two-time reigning world champion teammate Fernando Alonso into third place at the first corner of his first race.

On that day in 2007, a star was born.

Hamilton’s career has been a near two-decade assault on the sport’s record books since his first world championship in 2008. No driver has won more races, taken more poles, finished on more podiums and won more world titles.

A record eight pole positions in Melbourne, including a remarkable six in successive years from 2014-19.

And a legacy that’s still being written.

What’s remarkable about this season is that at the age of just 27, 2025 will be the 10th anniversary of Max Verstappen’s debut in Formula One,

Verstappen was 17 years and 177 days old when he made his F1 debut in Melbourne in 2015 and immediately showed his promise.

A decade after that first step into the F1® spotlight in Australia, Verstappen is now a multiple-time world champion and the driver the championship goes through, like Melbourne debutants Hamilton and Alonso before him.

Much has changed in Formula One across Melbourne’s long and glorious history as a Grand Prix city.

The cars look different, sound different, race faster and attract record audiences like we’ve never seen.

The Albert Park track has moved with the times as F1® gets bigger and better year after year.

Anyone who witnessed the six world champions in Melbourne’s Grand Prix history take their first steps to glory will never forget it.

So, who’s next? That’s not something we know. But what’s indisputable is that greatness starts right here.