The race was due to take place at the sixteen-turn, 5.303 km (3.295 mi) Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne, Victoria, on 15 March 2020.

[7] Nicholas Latifi was scheduled to make his Grand Prix race debut with Williams, taking the seat previously filled by Robert Kubica.

[8] Mission Winnow, the title sponsor of Ferrari, was banned from the race as it did not comply with local laws governing tobacco sponsorship.

[1][b] The Victorian Department of Health announced that the Australian Grand Prix would go ahead as planned;[18] Italian-based teams Ferrari and AlphaTauri expressed concern, as the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy was one of the worst outbreaks of the virus outside China.

[23] Organisers of the Bahrain Grand Prix, which was originally scheduled to take place one week after the Australian race, announced that spectators would not be permitted to attend the event.

Organisers of the Australian Grand Prix opted against similar measures, instead moving to minimise contact between spectators and competitors.

[28] Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews was criticised for allowing the Grand Prix to go ahead; he responded by saying that cancelling the race would be a disproportionate reaction to the advice the state government had been given.

[29] Daniel Andrews announced that spectators would be banned from attending if the Grand Prix were to go ahead, before the race was cancelled on the Friday morning a few hours before the Formula One cars were due to commence their first practice session.

In June 2020, federal tourism minister Simon Birmingham announced that the Australian government expected that the country's borders would be closed to international travel until 2021.

The Court found that AGPC represented that both the 2020 Grand Prix and the WTM Concert had been cancelled because Dr Sutton, then Chief Health Officer of Victoria had directed that both events could not proceed and that this representation was likely to mislead or deceive.

It was found that this representation was contrary to a text message from Dr Sutton earlier that day which said that the decision to cancel the WTM Concert was ultimately a matter for the organisers.