The Australian Grand Prix’s famous Melbourne Walk is heaving with people.
There are several great track vantage points around Albert Park, but this tiny strip of pavement leading into the paddock is the only place you’re guaranteed to see drivers, team principals and other motorsport high rollers waltz into the paddock.
The race comes to Melbourne but once a year, and from the early hours of the morning fans throng behind the fences separating the stars from mere mortals, desperate not to miss their chance to glimpse their heroes. After an hour or two there’s barely room to breathe as the bodies press up against the barrier, arms outstretched bearing pens or phones.
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Forget the tenths of a second that decide qualifying; here entire weekends are made or broken based on selfie count.
A remarkable 312,000 people have walked through the gates at Albert Park for the first three days of action at this year’s event, and 130,000 more are expected on Sunday.
The almost half a million fans that will have visited the track by Sunday night passionately support all the racers who’ve taken to the track this weekend, but you don’t need to read here that some drivers receive a little extra attention.
A frisson of excitement ripples through the crowd as the ever-popular Daniel Ricciardo and his plugged-in grin struts by, lavishing attention on the fans for whom his tough two years at Woking have done nothing to dent his reputation.
New boy Oscar Piastri is racing just 15 minutes up the road from his family home, and the McLaren driver breaks with a week of ultra-low-profile scheduling to run the gauntlet on Thursday, much to the crowd’s delight.
Even F2 star Jack Doohan can’t move around the circuit without being mobbed by supporters, his new bouffant of hair doing nothing to throw them off the scent.
But there’s another man for whom the raucous Australian crowd is making a special place in their hearts.
Donning a black singlet, shorts and thongs and replete with a moustache and mighty mullet, Finland’s Valtteri Bottas is mounting a strong case as the other Aussie of the Australian Grand Prix.
“That’s how I feel,” he tells Fox Sports at an earlier event with apparel partner Puma. “I get a lot of support (in Melbourne). I think it’s probably the most I get.
“It‘s almost like a home race for me.”
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There wasn’t a driver more active in the lead-up to the Australian Grand Prix than Bottas. The 10-time race winner held engagements as varied as hosting a gin tasting in the inner city to visiting Shepparton to help raise funds for the flood-affected Mooroopna’s Save the Children Kindergarten.
St Ali is selling a collaboration coffee bearing Bottas’s face, and his helmet this weekend was designed by Indigenous artist Ricky Kildea.
The 33-year-old — who even says he owns at least two pairs of budgie smugglers — is in the throes of a love affair with Australia, and Australia very much loves him back.
“I think obviously because I‘ve been together with my Australian girlfriend (South Australian Olympic cyclist Tiffany Cromwell) now for three years and I spend a bit more time here. Maybe that helps,” he says.
But his affinity for Australia was really officialised during the summer.
In a social media video that proved to be a viral sensation, Bottas had his hair cut into a mullet while swigging from a bottle of VB — Victoria Bitter also happening to form his initials in a happy coincidence.
“The mullet for sure helps,” he says of his popularity. “And I like VB — for me it’s light, it’s a refreshing drink.”
He thinks he might even be starting an international trend.
“There aren’t many mullets in Finland, but actually there are some coming up, so it‘s starting to trend. I think in Europe in general right now I’m seeing a few when last year I would not have not seen any.”
But the mullet-styled Bottas is just one part of a transformation that has revitalised the Finn.
After five years at Mercedes, where he spent most of the time being battered by seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton and considering retirement from the sport, he’s found a new lease on life at the Alfa Romeo-sponsored Sauber team.
Free from the more corporate Mercedes environment, he’s been free to embrace his true self — including by growing the mullet — and he’s flourished for it on and off the track.
Not only is he notably more relaxed than he was in his Mercedes days, with a laugh and a smile now never far away, but he’s found new gears on track as well as fulfilment in his role as a team leader as Sauber attempts to consolidate itself in the midfield.
“I definitely learnt to not take certain things too seriously, and I‘ve learnt to be slightly more forgiving to myself and not putting too much pressure on myself,” he says.
It’s something he’s also learnt from his time in Australia.
“The way of life — the main thing for people is that they want to have a good time, which is a great way of life.”
Hamilton, who long ago learnt to carve out some space for his own projects alongside his Formula 1 commitments, said he was proud to see his former teammate
“It‘s great,” he said. “I mean, I just saw Valtteri in his flip flops just now and with tan lines around his socks!
“It‘s great to see him flourish and feel more and more apart of himself and knowing exactly where he wants to go.
“I think just for everyone it‘s just a whole discovery processes of compartmentalising and just making space for happiness, away from the track.
“That‘s such an important thing, mental health, to make sure you, find something that you love.”
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Part of Bottas’s journey of discovery has been spending more time in Australia, for which he’s developed an affinity.
“I love the nature here, the wildlife and stuff like that,” he says. “My girlfriend is from in Adelaide, I‘ve been quite a lot there and I’ve got to know many places there and the wine regions and everything.
“Even here (in Melbourne) — in the December I spent a bit of time here and Yarra Valley and other places in Victoria.
“In my off season it‘s a big summer here, so that makes sense.
“It‘s just a great place to be.”
