Melbourne began hosting the Australian Grand Prix at the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit (Albert Park) in 1996, taking over from Adelaide, which hosted the race from 1985-1995. Albert Park is a historic venue which held two non-championship Australian Grand Prix races in 1953 and 1956 on a shorter, anti-clockwise track. For the majority of the year, the park is a popular local recreational space with walking trails, picnic areas and sports facilities. The temporary circuit is assembled around six weeks before race weekend and then disassembled again four weeks after the race.
In recent years, typical attendance over the weekend in Australia has been around 300,000 spectators, with a crowd in excess of 100 000 on race day, making it one of the best attended races on the current F1 calendar. In 2022, on F1’s return to Albert Park after an enforced two-year absence due to the coronavirus pandemic, the attendance figure exceeded 400,000. It was the best-attended Australian Grand Prix since the event moved to Melbourne in 1996.