Melbourne Speed Trap: Who is the fastest of them all?

Melbourne's Albert Park street circuit has always had the feel of a natural road course, and that feels even more following the 5.27km track's recent modifications.

The track's new layout is approximately 2.5 seconds faster than its previous format where F1 last raced in 2019.

Albert Park includes several fast sweeps rather then genuine straights, but maximum velocities as measured by the speed trap located at the end of the track's pit straight are still healthy.

Since the start of the season, Red Bull and Ferrari's next generation cars have been a match for each other. However, each design relies on different elements of strengths to achieve a near equal performance.

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Red Bull's RB18 appears to be more weighted towards straight-line speed rather than downforce while the opposite balance characterizes Ferrari's F1-75, a distinction that shows up in the speed trap readings.

Red Bull's Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen were among the fastest cars on the straight along with Alpine's chargers.

But Ferrari's Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc sat at the other end of the spectrum, and yet the latter outpaced Verstappen for pole.

It's hard to take away from the numbers a hard piece of information to try and guess how Sunday's battle between the front-runners will pan out.

As usual, strategy will have its say, with a straightforward medium to hard one stopper the quickest option, on paper.

But racing around Albert Park's new layout where walls are in close proximity with fast corners isn't risk-free, and any incident that triggers a safety car will reset the strategies, and open the door to unexpected opportunities.

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