Melbourne changes its look: farewell to iconic yellow trackside lines | 2025 F1 Australian GP. The Melbourne circuit loses one of the details that made it unique on the calendar .

Australia back at the start
This year, Formula 1 will open the season in Australia, at the Melbourne circuit, thus renewing the tradition of the first Grand Prix of the season being held at Albert Park. Since 1996, the first year the race moved to Melbourne from Adelaide, the Australian track has officially opened the season 22 times out of 29. Despite this welcome return to the past, made possible by the dates of Ramadan which led to the postponement of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix, there will be one ‘iconic’ element – which has always characterized the Melbourne race – that will be lost this year.

The work also includes the repositioning of the pit wall and the realignment of the TecPro barriers to prevent cars that exit in that area from bouncing back onto the track, as happened with George Russell last year. Along with these changes, the FIA insisted that all the track lines be repainted white, as is the case at other circuits in the championship.

Color change (imposed by the FIA)
“We were a bit of a unique case,” said Tom Mottram, head of events for the Australian GP, to Speedcafe. “I had to go back through the archives to figure out why the track markings were yellow, and it has to do with the fact that we are in a public park. There were some yellow lines painted during the year that prohibited parking when it was under the management of Parks Victoria. There was an agreement years ago that allowed us to keep them yellow so we wouldn’t have to repaint them every time. But now, with the changes to the track limits, new specifications have been introduced that require the color white with a blue outline,” Mottram concluded. For long-time fans, used to early wake-ups to watch the Australian race on TV, this may be the most striking change this year, at least visually.