Melbourne is firing up for the Australian Grand Prix, with teams and drivers descending on Victoria ahead of Sunday’s race.
It’s the 27th time the championship will visit Albert Park, where the finishing touches are being put on the iconic street circuit in the shadows of the Melbourne CBD.
The 2024 event is set to be the biggest yet, with another attendance record is expected, but not everyone is happy with the way the weekend is panning out.
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The Supercars series has seen its status slip from F1’s primary support category to fourth-string event behind Formula 3, Formula 2 and the main game on the event schedule.
It’s upset some key figures in the touring car category as it prepares to share in the limelight of Australia’s biggest racing stage and enjoy its share of the year’s largest weekend sporting crowd.
SUPERCARS ‘DESERVE BETTER’ THAN THIRD-STRING BILLING
Walkinshaw Andretti United co-owner Ryan Walkinshaw has hit out at the Australian Grand Prix’s treatment of the Supercars, arguing that his sport deserves better.
The Supercars was relegated to being the third support event at last year’s grand prix behind the international Formula 2 and Formula 3 championships, which were new additions to Albert Park in 2023.
This year the premier domestic racing category has taken another hit, with Formula 2 evicting it from pit lane and into temporary lodgings in the Albert Park infield.
Supercars will use the same irregular format as last year — two 105-kilometre races and another two 80-kilometre sprints — but the sport’s less accessible paddock means all will run without pit stops.
Walkinshaw, who co-owns the team with McLaren CEO Zak Brown’s United Autosports, said Supercars was having its contribution undervalued.
“I won’t pretend that I am not frustrated by the way I feel Supercars have been treated,” he told the Herald Sun.
“We have been a staple of that event for a long time. The fans love us, the corporate partners that we have see it as a really important event and we do an enormous event of partner activations both on track and off track during the course of the F1 week.
“It is frustrating when you see we are getting these races at unusual times, and they are very, very short. I think we deserve better.”
A further complication is that the Supercars paddock will no longer be accessible to general admission ticketholders, preventing fans from seeing the garages up close.
“I understand their process in regard to it not being a general admission area because when you are trying to move race cars and lots of people in that area it’s a recipe for a problem,” Supercars CEO Shane Howard said.
“We have been working very closely with [AGPC CEO] Travis Auld and his team, and Travis has made it very clear that he wants us there and he will look to try and do everything we can to improve what we have so we can put on a good show.
“Unfortunately we won’t be able to fix it this year, but we are going to work together and see if we can fix this [for the future].”
Internal Red Bull war still simmering | 01:32
STEINER ‘STAYED AT HAAS TOO LONG’
Former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner thinks he stayed at the American team for too long before being dismissed by owner Gene Haas.
Steiner, the team’s founding boss, was told he wouldn’t have his contract renewed during the off-season and has been replaced by Ayao Komatsu.
The Italian manager was let go over disagreements with American owner Haas about the team’s potential with its current business model, which minimises costs by buying as many parts as possible.
Writing for the Formula 1 website, Steiner said he had come to realise he never had a chance of hauling the team any further up the grid.
“The longer time goes on the more I can see that I stayed at Haas too long,” he said.
“When you step away you get clarity and you can see what you need to do. While you’re there you’re in denial — you think you can do it but you cannot.
“When I was there, with what we had, you could still fight for being seventh, eighth or ninth, but you couldn’t fight for podiums without the same weapons as the other guys.
“Doing that in the long term is not what I want to do in life. I don’t want to be seventh again. I’ve done that. I want to be able to fight, to battle at the front.”
Steiner appeared to suggest a team like Haas needed more time and investment to develop into a more significant competitor.
“When Toto Wolff started with Mercedes … he set everything up right to be successful in the mid term, and they won eight constructors championships,” he said.
“It’s the same thing with Red Bull. How long did it take for them to get there? Every year they kept on getting better. You need that patience and long-term planning.
“I would come back to F1 in the future, but it needs to be the right project, done right.”
Haas is sixth in the championship after scoring one point at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix last weekend.
Piastri powers to fourth in Saudi Arabia | 01:44
WOLFF CAUTIOUS ABOUT EARLY ANTONELLI TALK
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff thinks he may have heaped too much pressure on young gun Andrea Kimi Antonelli amid links between the Italian and a seat with the German marque in 2025.
Mercedes protégé Antonelli, 17 years old, is one of the most highly rated drivers of his generation.
His Mercedes-backed management team has elevated him directly into Formula 2 this season off the back of twin Formula Regional championships in Europe and the Middle East.
His standing is so great that the teenager has been touted as a potential replacement for Lewis Hamilton next season.
Wolff has admitted that the spectre of an F1-ready Antonelli played a role in offering Hamilton the short-term contract that eventually led to his Ferrari defection, but he’s now concerned that he’s allowed the spotlight to shine too harshly on the F2 rookie’s first season in the international series.
“I’m probably guilty in having talked too much about Kimi, because he’s just 17, he jumped F3, he’s going into F2,” he said.
“He needs to learn, he needs to be more in the shadows to be able to develop, understand what to do and whether he’s going to be in Formula 1 if everything goes to plan — but I don’t know if that is next year or whether it’s with us or someone else.”
Despite so many drivers being out of contract — and despite hints from Max Verstappen that he might leave Red Bull Racing — Wolff said he would bide his time before making a decision for 2025.
“The decision of Lewis to go to Ferrari was a pretty quick one, so I want to do the opposite,” he said. “I want to wait and see how the season pans out, how the driver market develops, and then take a decision later in the season.”
Antonelli is 10th in the championship standings after a pair of sixth-place finishes in Jeddah following a patchy start to the season for his Prema team.