Motor racing-Formula One statistics for the Australian Grand Prix

Lap distance: 5.303km. Total distance: 307.574km (58 laps)

Race lap record: Michael Schumacher (Germany) 1:24.125 (Ferrari, 2004)

2016 pole: Lewis Hamilton (Britain) Mercedes 1:23.837

2016 winner: Nico Rosberg (Germany) Mercedes

Start time: 0500 GMT (1600 local)

WINS

Mercedes won 19 of 21 races last season. The champions have won 51 of 59 races since the introduction of the 1.6 litre V6 turbo hybrid power units in 2014.

Red Bull, with Australian Daniel Ricciardo and Dutch teenager Max Verstappen, were the only non-Mercedes winners last season.

Triple world champion Hamilton has won at least 10 races in each of the last three seasons. He won 11 in 2014 and 10 in 2015 and 2016. He is the only driver to have won 10 races in a season and not taken the championship that year.

Hamilton has 53 career victories, putting him second in the all-time list behind Schumacher (91). Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel has 42, McLaren's Fernando Alonso is on 32 and Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen 20.

Ferrari have won 224 races, McLaren 182, Williams 114, Mercedes 64 and Red Bull 52. McLaren have not won for 78 races, a run that dates back to Brazil 2012.

POLE POSITION

Hamilton was on pole 12 times last season and now has 61, four short of the late Ayrton Senna's career total and seven behind Schumacher's record 68.

Mercedes were on pole in 20 races last year and have been on pole in 56 of the last 59.

ROOKIES

There is only one complete newcomer this season - Canadian Lance Stroll at Williams.

McLaren's Belgian rookie Stoffel Vandoorne did one race last year and scored on his debut, finishing 10th.

AUSTRALIA

No Australian has ever won at home. There have been 13 Australian F1 drivers since 1950 and two world champions – Jack Brabham and Alan Jones. Daniel Ricciardo is the only Australian in Sunday's race.

All four of the sport's active champions (Hamilton, Vettel, Alonso, Raikkonen) have won in Australia.

Melbourne has been the season-opener 19 times. This year's race is the 22nd to be held at Albert Park.

Since 2002, the winner in Australia has ended the season as champion on nine occasions. In total, the winner in Melbourne has gone on to be world champion 13 out of 21 times.

The race winner at Albert Park has started on pole on nine occasions. The lowest starter to win was Britain's Eddie Irvine from 11th in 1999 for Ferrari.

Eight of the last nine races in Australia have seen the safety car deployed.

McLaren's last podium finish was in Australia in 2014 (Magnussen).

Russian Daniil Kvyat has failed to start the last two races in Melbourne due to technical problems.

MILESTONE

Formula One has no reigning champion on the grid for the first time since 1994, the season after French great Alain Prost retired.

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Peter Rutherford)