Day 2: Albert Park ready for great Friday
Thursday, 7 April 2022
F1® is ready for action and the Support grid is settled.
After a huge opening day, the Formula 1® Heineken® Australian Grand Prix 2022 takes a big step on Friday, with the Formula 1® drivers and cars taking to the Albert Park circuit for the first time.
After track upgrades that have cost $20 million, record speeds can be expected when the opening Practice session starts at 1:00 pm. The second session at 4:00 pm will run in the cooler part of the afternoon, which could lead to even faster times, as the teams ready their cars to fight it out for grid positions on Saturday.
In Thursday's Support event practice and qualifying sessions, lap times were bettered by a huge amount, and an improvement of up to six seconds is expected from the F1® cars.
There will also be plenty of Support event activity, kicking off with two Qualifying sessions for the Beaurepaires Supercars, starting at 9:40 am. The roaring V8s will have the first of four races over the course of the weekend, with Race 1 set to start at 2:20 pm. David Reynolds and Will Davison split the pole positions in their Ford Mustangs on Thursday.
The fastest drivers in the country in the S5000 open-wheelers will have their first race at 10:20 am, followed by the first race for the Paynter Dixon Carrera Cup at 11:00 am, which will see the brand-new 4-litre Porsche 992 GT3 Cup racers in action for the first time.
There is also the Shannons Historic Demonstration and 12 midday and a clash of technologies with the MSS Security Ultimate Speed Comparison, which will feature a one-lap dash with Jamie Whincup in a Holden Commodore Supercar taking on Rally ace Harry Bates in a Toyota Yaris turbo and Bathurst 1000 winner Luke Youlden in Porsche’s all-electric Taycan Turbo S.
If you can tear yourself away from the action, there is much to see and do on the entertainment stage. There are plenty to Tech Talks to take in, starting with Fizzics Education at 10:10 am and the Racing Team Panel Discussion, hosted by the RMIT, at 10:40 am.
A Supercars Tech Talk starts at 11:30 am, followed by the BAE Systems Challenge at 12:15 pm, which will see students from Grades 4 to 10 to use their science, technology, and engineering (STEM) disciplines in F1® racing to design a racing powerboat.
Shell engineers will take over at 12:50 pm to showcase the oil giant’s role with the Ferrari F1 team, followed by an Australian Defence Force Tech Talk at 2:00 pm.
There will be plenty of music to enjoy, starting with DJ Emma Peters at 11:30 am, Melbourne singer WILSN at 2:00 pm and Budjerah at 3:00 pm. Melbourne singer, songwriter, producer, drummer and musician G Flip will take to the stage at 5:45 pm.
And don’t forget to look up around 3:40 pm to see the RAAF put on a show to remember above the Grand Prix Circuit.
