The race marked the 77th running of the Australian Grand Prix in its combined history dating to the 100 Miles Road Race of 1928, and the 17th time the World Championship round was held at Albert Park. It was the first Grand Prix since the 1973 German Grand Prix to feature no Italian driver, the first to feature six current and former world champions simultaneously, and the first Australian Grand Prix to include two Australian drivers on the grid.
Circuit modifications included two DRS zones replacing the single zone used in 2011, and thicker astroturf at the exits of several corners to discourage track-limit violations. Mercedes brought a rear wing concept described as "radical" that FIA technical delegate Charlie Whiting examined Thursday and declared legal; Red Bull and Lotus later requested a post-qualifying review, claiming it violated Articles 3.15 and 3.18, but no further action was taken.
Charles Pic and Jean-Éric Vergne made their Formula One debuts at the event, driving for Marussia and Toro Rosso respectively. Romain Grosjean and Daniel Ricciardo also joined the grid as full-time drivers for the first time, representing Lotus and Toro Rosso. Both HRT cars of Pedro de la Rosa and Narain Karthikeyan failed to qualify after falling outside the 107% time limit, the last Formula One cars as of 2026 to fail to qualify for a race.
Hamilton took pole with the weekend's only sub-1:25 lap. Fernando Alonso was eliminated in Q2 after spinning into the gravel at turn one and being unable to rejoin the session — Ferrari's first failure to advance at least one car to Q3 in a dry qualifying session since the 2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Kimi Räikkönen, returning to Formula One with Lotus, was eliminated in Q1 after running wide and touching the sandtrap on his final lap. Ricciardo and Grosjean both reached Q3 for the first time in their careers.
Button led from the start with Hamilton slotting in behind. First-corner contact removed Hülkenberg from the race after an impact with Webber. Grosjean retired early when contact with Maldonado snapped his steering arm. Schumacher withdrew on lap ten with a gearbox problem, elevating Vettel to third behind the two McLarens.
Tyre degradation was higher than anticipated, pushing most frontrunners onto three-stop strategies. Sergio Pérez ran the opposite approach: starting on the harder prime tyre, he completed the race with a single pit stop, ultimately finishing eighth and matching his strategy from the previous year's race.
A safety car on lap 37 was deployed to recover Vitaly Petrov's Caterham from a dangerous position on the start/finish straight. During the resulting pit stop cycle, Vettel gained second place from Hamilton. At the restart Button rebuilt a three-second gap. Hamilton could not pass Vettel and fell into the clutches of Webber. Maldonado, chasing Alonso for fifth on the final lap, applied too much throttle on the astroturf at turn 7, spun, and made heavy contact with the wall. He was unhurt and classified thirteenth for completing 90% of the race distance.
On the final lap, Rosberg made contact with Pérez approaching the chicane, allowing Räikkönen to pass both. Positions eight through eleven at the finish were separated by under 0.4 seconds. The top-ten finishers were Button, Vettel, Hamilton, Webber, Alonso, Kamui Kobayashi, Räikkönen, Pérez, Ricciardo, and Paul di Resta.
Mark Webber's fourth place was the best finish by an Australian driver at the Australian Grand Prix since Alfredo Costanzo finished fourth in 1984, when the race was still run under domestic rules. Heikki Kovalainen received a five-place grid penalty for the subsequent round for overtaking during a safety car restart before passing the safety car line.
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