The Formula 1 season heads to Melbourne for the 2026 Australian Grand Prix, one of the most anticipated races of the year on the streets of Albert Park. If you want to go beyond just watching the broadcast and actually drive the race yourself, Assetto Corsa and a good selection of mods let you recreate the full Grand Prix weekend on your home simulator.
What to expect from the 2026 Australian Grand Prix
Albert Park has become a modern F1 classic: a semi‑permanent circuit that mixes fast chicanes, heavy braking zones and bumpy traction zones next to the lake. For 2026, teams arrive in Melbourne with the latest evolution of the new‑regulation cars, meaning a lot of attention will be on top speed on the main straight, stability over the curbs and tyre wear in long stints.
Because it is the first race of the season on this kind of layout, drivers and engineers use every lap of free practice to understand how the cars behave over the bumps and how aggressive they can be on the entries of Turns 1, 3 and 11. Qualifying is usually extremely tight, and track evolution plays a huge role as more rubber goes down over the weekend.
Albert Park Track Facts
- Location: Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia
- Circuit type: Semi‑permanent street / park circuit
- First Formula 1 Grand Prix at Albert Park: 1996
- Number of corners: 14
- Race laps: 58
- Race distance: 306.124 km
- Direction: Clockwise
- Notable features: Fast chicanes, walls close to the track and bumpy braking and traction zones around the lake
2026 Australian Grand Prix Schedule
Below you can find the full schedule for the 2026 Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park, with session times converted to several major time zones so you can follow the action live from home.
| Session | Date (local) | Melbourne (AEDT) | CET (Madrid/Paris) | GMT (UK) | ET (New York) | PT (Los Angeles) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Practice 1 | Friday 6 March | 12:30 | 02:30 (Fri) | 01:30 | 20:30 (Thu) | 17:30 (Thu) |
| Practice 2 | Friday 6 March | 16:00 | 06:00 (Fri) | 05:00 | 00:00 (Fri) | 21:00 (Thu) |
| Practice 3 | Saturday 7 March | 12:30 | 02:30 (Sat) | 01:30 | 20:30 (Fri) | 17:30 (Fri) |
| Qualifying | Saturday 7 March | 16:00 | 06:00 (Sat) | 05:00 | 00:00 (Sat) | 21:00 (Fri) |
| Race | Sunday 8 March | 15:00 | 05:00 (Sun) | 04:00 | 23:00 (Sat) | 20:00 (Sat) |
In these articles, we always provide the schedule for each session along with some mods to enhance the experience in Assetto Corsa Ultimate.
Recreate the 2026 Australian GP in Assetto Corsa
If you own Assetto Corsa on PC, you can bring the 2026 Australian Grand Prix to your rig with a combination of community content and tools. With the right F1 2026 car mod, an updated version of Albert Park and Content Manager, you can set up a full race distance, practice sessions and even simulate the real‑world schedule from Friday to Sunday.
The idea is simple: load the latest F1 2026 mod, pick the Melbourne layout and race against an AI grid that mirrors the real starting field. Thanks to modern physics and high‑quality track models, braking points, kerbs and racing lines will feel close enough to reality to make it a useful playground both for fun and for basic race preparation.
The circuit is not officially available for Assetto Corsa, but we leave you a link. To manage the rest, you can use:
- Fenryr Albert Park
- ACU Albert Park (Free)
- Formula Hybrid X 2026
- Formula Ultra 2026 1.1 (Free)
- Content Manager
We leave you with some impressive videos in Assetto Corsa:
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