Australian Grand Prix fans are blasted for ’embarrassing act’ as record crowds brave stormy conditions at F1 season opener

Formula One fans have been blasted online for leaving their rubbish littered around the banks of the race track at Albert Park.

Weather wreaked havoc during Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix with six drivers crashing out of the race due to the torrential conditions.

Lando Norris would ultimately go on to clinch victory in the season opener – the fifth win of his career – while Aussie drivers Oscar Piastri and Jack Doohan both succumbed to the torrid conditions.

Piastri, who drove brilliantly at his home Grand Prix, skidded off the track mid-way through the race but was able to continue, going on to place ninth. The same could not be said for Doohan, with the Alpine driver crashing into a barrier earlier in the race, forcing him to sit out the remainder of the drive.

With this year set to be one of the most competitive seasons on record, plenty of fans were keen to snag a ticket for the first race of the season Down Under. More than 465,498 patrons have entered the gates at Albert Park for the event across the first four days, meaning that Australian Grand Prix organisers have seen an increase of more than 13,000 coming through the gates.

Today, fans donned rain macs, plastic overcoats and unfurled their umbrellas as they braved the adverse conditions in Melbourne for the race.

But after racegoers had dispersed from the grounds some were left feeling ’embarrassed’ by the amount of litter that was strewn on some of the banks around Albert Park.

One Reddit user, Dogryan100, published a picture on the social media channel r/formula1, showing the amount of litter that had been left around the grounds.

The social media user wrote: ‘Dear fans, please clean up your mess when you leave.’

Other fans left comments in the thread also expressing their ‘disgust’ at the littler.

‘I walked past this, absolutely disgusting the amount of rubbish left dumped,’ one wrote.

Another racegoer who appeared to have attended the event spoke out on some of the items people were leaving.

‘I was there and people literally abandoned camp chairs and their junk leaving it for the staff to deal with. Felt pretty embarrassed as an event-goer.

‘On top of that the lack of awareness of people trying to catch the trams coming home. Crowds just standing in the way of roads with cars trying to pass through a human wall waiting to get on transport. See what happens next year.’

One added that the bins around Albert Park had also been overflowing.

‘Not saying you’re wrong but unfortunately, the bins were overflowing and there weren’t enough of them. GP corp don’t have the Clean Events contractors anymore either.’

There was heartache at the end of the race for Aussie star Piastri, who cut a dejected figure after he dropped from second to ninth after spinning off the wet track.

Speaking to Sky Sports, Piastri said: ‘It’s obviously pretty disappointing at the moment.

‘I felt like for every lap apart from one I drove an incredibly strong race and it’s just a shame not to land the result to show for it. I obviously don’t have anyone to blame but myself. It was a bit unfortunate to get stuck the way. did. But it was only myself that put me there.

‘I think for me the big positive is the other 56 laps of the race. I felt like I had really strong pace and that’s what I will try and take away from this weekend as a team and with Lando they made the right decision and with myself, given that I was trying to reverse for about a minute, we still made the right decision.

‘So I’m proud of the whole team effort this weekend and just a shame not to have a better result.

‘It would hurt if I had a bad car. But clearly, there was much more on the table than P9 today so it was just a shame to not have that result.’