2020 Australian Grand Prix

The 2020 Australian Grand Prix (formally known as the Formula 1 Rolex Australian Grand Prix 2020) was a Formula One motor race that was due to be held on 15 March 2020 in Melbourne, Victoria. The race was to be contested at the Albert Park Circuit and was intended to be the first round of the 2020 Formula One World Championship. Hours before the first practice session was due to begin, the event was cancelled in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia.

The race would have been the 85th race in the combined history of the Australian Grand Prix, which dates back to the 100 Miles Road Race of 1928, as well as the 25th time the event had been held at the Albert Park circuit and the 36th time the Australian Grand Prix had been a part of the Formula One World Championship.

Lewis Hamilton initially entered the round as the defending World Drivers' Champion and his team, Mercedes, was the defending World Constructors' Champions. His teammate Valtteri Bottas was due to be defending race winner.

In December 2019, the Australian Grand Prix was officially confirmed as the first of twenty-two races of the originally planned 2020 Formula One World Championship at an FIA World Motor Sport Council meeting in Paris. The race was due to take place at the sixteen-turn, 5.303 km (3.295 mi) Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne, Victoria, on 15 March 2020.

Initially, ten teams each with two drivers entered the race. Scuderia AlphaTauri were due to compete for the first time after the rebranding of Scuderia Toro Rosso. Esteban Ocon was due to return to the championship, replacing Nico Hülkenberg at Renault. Nicholas Latifi was scheduled to make his Grand Prix race debut with Williams, taking the seat previously filled by Robert Kubica.

Mission Winnow, the title sponsor of Ferrari, was banned from the race as it did not comply with local laws governing tobacco sponsorship.

The weeks before the Grand Prix saw several major sporting events either cancelled or postponed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was declared a pandemic by World Health Organization on 12 March. The Chinese Grand Prix had already been postponed several weeks prior and would later be cancelled altogether.

The Victorian Department of Health announced that the Australian Grand Prix would go ahead as planned; Italian-based teams Ferrari and AlphaTauri expressed concern, as the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy was one of the worst outbreaks of the virus outside China. As the Australian Government did not initially implement a travel ban for Italy the way it had for China, Iran, and South Korea, Ferrari and AlphaTauri were concerned over the ability of their staff to leave the quarantine zone established in northern Italy. Ross Brawn, the managing director of the sport, announced that Grands Prix would not go ahead if a team were blocked from entering a host nation, but added that a race could take place if a team voluntarily chose not to enter a host nation.