Australia first featured on the Formula 1 calendar in 1985 with the race taking place on a street circuit in Adelaide for 11 years before moving to its current home in Melbourne.
This weekend the action returns to Albert Park but before the cars take to the circuit, we thought it would be a good idea to take a trip down memory lane.
After all, there have been plenty of memorable moments, good and bad, at the Australian F1 Grand Prix over the years.
1986 – The Mansell Hoodoo
When the race took place in South Australia, it was the final event on the F1 calendar and the stage was set for a dramatic conclusion to the 1986 world championship.
Nigel Mansell was in prime position to take out the title in his Williams, needing to finish third to hold off Brazilian teammate Nelson Piquet and Frenchman Alain Prot in his McLaren.
On lap 63 of 82, Keke Rosberg was forced to retire which put Mansell in third place but his car did not cooperate, with a left rear tyre exploding on lap 64 and forcing the Brit to retire.
Prost won the race and the world title, while Mansell finished two points behind and left to wonder what could have been.
That formed part of a horror run of results down under, retiring in all four of his starts from 1985-1989 while missing the 1987 event as he recovered from a crash in a prior race.
1990 saw an improvement in results, finishing second in that race and 1991, before a retirement in 1992 (although he did finally win the world title that year) and his final Australian Grand Prix, he won the 1994 event.
1991 – Rain wreaks havoc on the field
Normally you would associate weather disruptions with the Melbourne editions of the Australian Grand Prix, but it was Adelaide turning on the waterworks for this incident.
For those unaware, the minimum distance for a Formula 1 race is just over 300km, which required 82 laps of the Adelaide street circuit.
Thanks to the torrential rain that started falling on race day, this event made history but probably not for the reasons it was hoping for.
Numerous crashes and an accumulation of standing water meant the race was stopped after just 16 laps.
One silver lining is that this had little to no baring on the final world championship standings since Ayrton Senna had easily wrapped up the title weeks earlier.
Until the utterly bizarre Belgian Grand Prix a few years ago, this was the shortest F1 race in history.
1998 – An actual display of teamwork
Formula 1 can claim it is a team sport until they run out of air, but let’s be frank, the constructors’ championship is a long way behind the drivers’ title in terms of prestige.
It’s why we have seen on many occasions teammates battling for track position and at times taking both cars out (looking at you Sebastian Vettel).
However the 1998 Australian Grand Prix produced a rare display of teamwork as McLaren duo David Coulthard and Mikka Hakkinen honoured a pre-race gentlemen’s agreement.
Both cars had lapped the field and the Finn was a long way ahead of his Scottish teammate but a pit mishap allowed Coulthard to take over the race lead.
Knowing they were going to absolutely destroy the field and were only competing with each other, they reportedly agreed that whoever had the lead going into the first corner would win the race.
Much to the chagrin of the viewing public, pundits and other figures, Coulthard stuck to his word, slowed down to allow Hakkinen to pass with three laps remaining and settled for second place.
It was a brutal Grand Prix overall to start the season with only 9 cars finishing the race, but it did help spring Hakkinen to the title which he won ahead of Michael Schumacher.
2002 – Ralf Schumacher goes flying
Imagine being the brother of Michael Schumacher, it’s always going to be hard to get noticed since he won pretty much everything.
While Michael won the race, Ralf’s spectacular crash on the first corner of the 2002 race drew most of the headlines.
All up, eight of the 22 starters were wiped out in the carnage caused by the flying Williams before the tyres had a chance to properly warm up.
Not that the rest of the field seemed to mind.
2002 part 2 – Mark Webber in the points
That crash opened the door for a lanky Australian, making his F1 debut to make his mark on the sport.
Mark Webber, racing for Minardi rode out the carnage and wound up crossing the finish line in fifth spot in his home race.
The locals were used to seeing Michael Schumacher win, which meant the biggest cheers of the day were reserved for him crossing the finish line ahead of Mika Salo.
It set the stage for a pretty decent F1 career that could have (and arguably should have) produced a world title for him.
2006 – Giancarlo Fisichella served well-done
British driver Jenson Button started the race in pole position but by the final lap of the race, he was desperately trying to hold off Giancarlo Fisichella in the battle for fifth.
He was pushing his car to the limit and the car bit back, first spewing smoke before firing flames out the back and right onto the trailing Renault.
As the Honda sputtered down the main straight, Fisichella flew by and Button was forced to stop metres short of the line.
The small comfort is that Button was officially classified as the tenth place finisher, ahead of the cars that ended the race a lap down.
2009 – Brawn’s boisterous beginnings
While not exactly a new team, Brawn’s resurrection from the wreckage of Honda in the opening race of the 2009 season was nothing short of remarkable.
Lead by Jenson Button, the revived outfit kicked off what would be a dominant campaign with an impressive race win, leading from lights out to the checkered flag.
2014 – Ricciardo gets disqualified
This has absolutely nothing to do with the fact Neds is an Aussie company, but in the opinion of this author and a couple of other F1 fans in the office who have watched Drive to Survive, Daniel Ricciardo was robbed in 2014.
On debut for Red Bull, the WA native finished in second place and managed to get on the podium to receive his trophy.
However once the champagne bottles were emptied, Ricciardo was informed he had been disqualified because his car had exceeded the maximum fuel flow rate.
If someone wants to translate that infringement into English that would be great.
2016 – Fernando Alonso’s massive crash
Fernando Alonso has seen and done just about everything throughout his long F1 career, but this is one of his more spectacular crashes.
Trying to overtake Esteban Gutierrez at 300km/h, Alonso clipped his rival and went flying into several barriers before being brought to an abrupt halt in turn three.
That resulted in a red flag as the mess from the two cars had to be cleaned up.
2023 – The stop-start finish
Hopefully nobody had dinner plans immediately after the 2023 race because this was one of the more bizarre endings you will see.
Ultimately this was another history making event with three red flags shown during the race as eight drivers failed to finish due to a number of crashes.
The first one came on lap seven as Alex Albon left a lot of debris on the track after his crash but it was the conclusion that drew most of the headlines.
On the third last lap, Kevin Magnussen crashed forcing another race stoppage and on the restart, a four car collision took out both Alpines plus Nyck de Vries and Logan Sargeant.
Once the track had been cleared and the drivers put back in their placings from the last restart (read the rulebook to work out why), the race resumed just to have the drivers cross the finish line.
You have to feel a bit sorry for Carlos Sainz who had a five-second penalty hanging over his head and with the cars rolling over the line in a close formation, it meant he dropped from fourth to 12th.
On the plus side, in amongst the chaos, Aussie Oscar Piastri did earn his first career F1 points finish, ending up in eighth spot.