Record Melbourne crowds attend chaotic 2023 Formula One Australian Grand Prix

More than 440,000 fans attended the 2023 Formula One Australian Grand Prix weekend – a new record for the Melbourne running of the event – including a chaotic race on Sunday which saw Red Bull's Max Verstappen take victory, and Aussie rookie Oscar Piastri score his first F1 points.

Although the estimated attendance of 441,631 over four days is a record for Melbourne, the all-time Australian Grand Prix attendance record remains with the final running of the event in Adelaide, in 1995, when an estimated 520,000 fans attended.

It exceeds the 419,114 attendees estimated for the four-day 2022 Grand Prix weekend – and the 324,100 reported in 2019, the final year of the event before a two-year hiatus due to COVID-19.

Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen took his maiden Formula One Australian Grand Prix victory on Sunday – after taking pole position in qualifying on Saturday – in a race laden with mayhem and drama.

It was the first Formula One race in history to be 'red flagged' (paused) three times, after a series of crashes and mechanical failures resulted in eight cars failing to reach the finish line, and the race ending under a safety car procession.

Highly-rated Australian rookie Oscar Piastri – who made his F1 debut with McLaren this year, replacing fellow Aussie Daniel Ricciardo – scored his first points in Formula One with an eighth-placed finish in Melbourne.

Melbourne-born Piastri is the first Australian F1 driver to race in their home town, and the third to score their first-ever Formula One points in Australia, after Daniel Ricciardo in 2012 and Mark Webber in 2002.

Sunday's attendance for the 2023 event was the second highest on record for Melbourne, at 131,124 – however 210,000 fans were estimated to have attended the 1995 Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide.

Mercedes-AMG's George Russell took the lead of the race on the opening lap, before a safety car was quickly called out to recover the stranded Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, who was spun off into the gravel.

The second safety car was called on Lap 7 after Alex Albon's Williams spun and crashed into a tyre barrier – but it was soon escalated to a red flag to stop the race while gravel and debris were cleared off the circuit.

Russell surrendered the lead after pitting under the safety car for a fresh set of tyres – but lost his advantage after the red flag allowed other drivers to change their tyres while stopped in the pit lane, without losing time.

After the race resumed on Lap 10, Verstappen took the lead from Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton on Lap 12, and drew an 8.5-second gap before the a safety car was called on Lap 53 after the rear-right tyre from the Haas of Denmark's Kevin Magnussen's came off after clipping the wall.

The second red flag was called on Lap 55 to recover the tyre, and race officials elected to end the Grand Prix with a two-lap sprint to the finish line – rather than finish it early, or under a safety car.

But the second race restart led to more chaos as Fernando Alonso's Aston Martin was spun by Ferrari's Carlos Sainz, Williams' Logan Sargeant rear-ended AlphaTauri's Nyck de Vries, and French Alpine team-mates Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly collided – all before reaching the third turn.

The race was red-flagged a third time for about 30 minutes to clear the four stricken cars – as Alonso and Sainz were able to drive back to the pits.

Race officials elected to finish the final remaining lap of the race under the safety car – in a procession from the pit exit to the finish line – but in the order of the cars at the time of the previous restart, minus the cars which could not continue after the chaos and crashes in turns one and two.

It meant Max Verstappen crossed the line to win ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso – who started the previous restart in third place, before being spun out – while Oscar Piastri crossed the line ninth.

However, a late-state five-second penalty applied to Sainz for causing the collision with Alonso dropped the Spaniard from fourth to twelfth – or last place – promoting Piastri to eighth position, and his team-mate, the UK's Lando Norris, to sixth.