The race was contested over fifty-seven laps of the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit and was the first round of the 2016 FIA Formula One World Championship.

Lewis Hamilton took the first pole position of the season and the fiftieth of his career in a qualifying session that saw the introduction of a new one-by-one elimination format that was widely criticised.

Mercedes used the break for a change of tyres that allowed their drivers to take a 1–2 finish after Vettel had initially led the race from the start.

[11] Rain had fallen before the start of the first practice session, rendering the track wet and slippery, and drivers initially opted to go on their first laps on intermediate tyres.

Shortly before the end of the session, rain returned and caught out many drivers, including Räikkönen and Ricciardo, whose Red Bull RB12 got stuck in a gravel pit at turn twelve.

Rosberg later apologised for the incident,[14] which saw him trying to get back to pit lane, before his team told him to stop on track, calling an early end to his session.

Lewis Hamilton again set the fastest time with 1:25.624, less than two-tenths of a second in front of teammate Rosberg, with Sebastian Vettel in third position close behind.

However, Mercedes's advantage over Ferrari proved more significant, up to seven-tenths of a second on the harder soft compound, the tyre most likely to be used in the race.

Toro Rosso confirmed their good pace for the weekend with fourth and sixth place for Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen respectively, being about half a second quicker than their sister team, Red Bull Racing.

A major incident occurred just seconds after the beginning of the practice session, when Rio Haryanto and Romain Grosjean collided in the pit lane.

[11] The new format meant that all cars took to the track quickly in Q1, with everyone setting lap times on the super-soft compound, the fastest tyre available at the event.

Every other driver was limited to only one timed lap and in the end, the two Ferrari cars of Vettel and Räikkönen locked out the second row on the grid ahead of Max Verstappen and Felipe Massa.

Mercedes's executive director Toto Wolff and former driver Johnny Herbert were equally critical, describing it as "rubbish" and "embarrassing".

Red Bull team director Christian Horner was apologetic, describing the format as "[not] good for Formula One.

[26] Bernie Ecclestone, the commercial rights holder of Formula One, spoke out against the format as well, declaring it to be "pretty crap".

[27] On the day of the race, the teams of Formula 1 voted a proposal to go back to the qualifying format as it had been in previous seasons, which was rejected by the FIA's F1 Commission.

Kevin Magnussen suffered a puncture on the first lap and made a pit stop for new tyres, while Esteban Gutiérrez had mechanical issues at the back of the field.

A quicker stop by Rosberg saw Vettel emerge just in front of him, but the Ferrari stayed ahead and he passed Hamilton for second on lap 16.

[33][34] While Alonso walked away with minor injuries, a safety car was deployed for a short time before the race direction decided to red flag the race due to the huge amounts of debris across the track from both Alonso's McLaren and damaged advertising boards, causing all cars to come back into pitlane.

The running order at the restart was: Vettel, Rosberg, Räikkönen, Ricciardo, Verstappen, Sainz, Hamilton, Massa, Grosjean, Bottas.

[31][32] Vettel led away at the restart, but his Ferrari teammate Räikkönen was forced to pull into the pit lane on lap 22 with fire coming from his airbox and subsequently retired, handing second place to Rosberg.

By lap 31, the gap between Vettel and Rosberg started to come down again, while Hamilton moved ahead of Sainz into fifth as the latter made a pit stop.

Hamilton now started to pull back time on the leaders, while debutant Palmer held off the two Toro Rosso drivers in a struggle for ninth place.

With Romain Grosjean having finished in sixth, Haas F1 became the first new (and "from scratch") constructor since Toyota in 2002 to score points in its inaugural Grand Prix race entry.

"[38] Sebastian Vettel meanwhile was satisfied with his start, but lamented the red flag situation and said that Ferrari had not expected Mercedes to opt for the harder tyre compound and go until the end of the race.

[44] Particular praise after the race went to both newcomers Haas and debutant Jolyon Palmer,[43] who delivered what The Guardian described as an "impressive" drive.