Seven Ferrari wins in Australia

This will be the 30th Australian Grand Prix, with the race held on the Adelaide street circuit from 1985 to 1995, before moving the following year to the 5.303 kilometres of the temporary Albert Park facility in southern Melbourne.

Ferrari has won Down Under seven times, which is a strike rate of one in four, but looking just at Melbourne, it’s one in three. The first victory came courtesy of Gerhard Berger, who was on fire back in November 1987. At the wheel of the F1-87, he had already won the Japanese GP a fortnight earlier and Adelaide was the only grand slam of his F1 career, taking pole, fastest race lap and leading for all of the 82 laps. After the race, Ayrton Senna’s Lotus was disqualified for illegal brake ducts, which added to the joy for the Prancing Horse, as it promoted Michele Alboreto to second.

The second Ferrari win here was a surprise victory for Eddie Irvine, in a race where Michael Schumacher had endless problems, as did the McLarens that had set the pace in qualifying. The man from Northern Ireland therefore claimed his first win in a year when he would fight to the very last race for the Drivers’ crown, after Schumacher had broken a leg at Silverstone.

At the start of this century Melbourne witnessed something of a Ferrari monopoly, with Schumacher winning in 2000, 2001 and 2002, years in which he also took the title. He also won in 2004 with an impressive show of force from the Prancing Horse, as it ran first and second throughout with Schumacher and Barrichello. Only Alonso, third in the Renault, managed to cross the line under a minute behind Michael. The last win dates back to 2007 and marked Kimi Raikkonen’s Scuderia Ferrari debut. Kimi dominated from pole, his superiority never in question, as could be seen by the fact his fastest lap was over a second quicker than that of the second fastest driver.

Other Ferrari figures from Australia include seven pole positions and eight fastest race laps, with a total of 20 podium finishes. Apart from the seven wins there have been eight second places and five thirds. 14 drivers have lined up for the Maranello squad in Australia, including two test drivers: Nicola Larini replaced Ivan Capelli in 1992 and Gianni Morbidelli got the chance to drive a Ferrari after the team split with Alain Prost just before the end of the 1991 season. Australia was Morbidelli’s only appearance at the wheel of a Prancing Horse car and he finished sixth, but only scored half points as the incessant rain in Adelaide meant the event was stopped after 14 laps, making it the shortest GP in history, lasting just 24’34”899. Needless to say, given the wet conditions, the winner was the rain master Ayrton Senna in the McLaren.