Australian GP weather forecast: ‘Sprinkle’ of rain could make Melbourne ‘spicy’

Sam Cooper
Max Verstappen passing Zhou Guanyu. Melbourne April 2022.

Max Verstappen passing Zhou Guanyu during free practice for the Australian Grand Prix. Melbourne April 2022.

With some rain forecast for this weekend’s race in Australia, the CEO of the grand prix has predicted it could make for a “spicy” race.

Australia is not often known for its rain but it appears the city of Melbourne in the south east of the country could see a few showers as the F1 cars take to the track this weekend.

The BBC has forecast that rain could hit the circuit during qualifying but that should ease up come race day.

But it appears the Australian Grand Prix CEO has got his information from another source as from what he believes, we could have a wet race this weekend and one that could “be a little bit spicy.”

“It’s not going to be any surprise,” Andrew Westacott told the F1 Nation podcast. “And I do think that it’s going to be a Red Bull victory. They’ve won round here before on a few occasions with Sebastian [Vettel] at the steering wheel.

“I love the way the cars are looking with the Aston Martins but the interesting thing is we’ve got a fourth DRS zone and last year it was actually Fernando [Alonso] who didn’t like it.

“But the fourth DRS zone coming around Lakeside and coming into Turn 11 is re-instigated and that will make it quicker and doable. Let’s see what happens. But at the moment, maybe it looks predictable.

“But let’s hope there is a bit of a sprinkle of rain on Sunday afternoon. The tickets have been sold, but it could be a little bit spicy. Let’s hope.”

Westacott could also not help himself to a cheeky dig at his fellow Australians in Sydney by stating it was good to keep the event, which was renewed until 2037 in December, in Melbourne.

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“We’ve got it until 2037 now so it’s sensational to have it that long which is good for people’s careers, it’s good for the development of the circuit and it’s really good for Melbourne to keep it away from people in Sydney!

“It’s a massive task. There’s 400,000 hours of labour that goes into it from a trades point of view. We start the early stage stuff of contractors compounds and everything in January, but then it’s about an eight to nine week build of the track itself.

“To put it into perspective, this year we have 46,000 temporary grandstand seats and so they needed to be put in a little bit earlier.

“That was up from 39,000 the previous year and at the moment, we’ve got about 1,500 people putting the finishing touches on the circuit. There were 4,000 builders inducted from our safety programme.

“So it’s going extremely well and then we return it back.

“For those who don’t know Albert Park, it’s a bit like Central Park and Hyde Park on a flat basis and the park keeps operating until Monday night of the event week when we close the park at midnight to the public.

“So it’s only on Tuesday morning at about 6am that they close the entries at Turn Five and Turn 11.”