Melbourne Grand Prix was four seasons in one race in Knight toon

Melbourne is well known for its ever-changing weather patterns. Melburnians often find themselves bathed in beautiful morning sunshine, then umbrellas are out for rain squalls* at lunchtime, only to find themselves pulling on jumpers in the afternoon as a south-westerly change brings windy blizzard conditions. The band Crowded House* even wrote a hit song about it, using the well known Melbourne phrase, “Four seasons in one day” as the song’s title to describe the turbulent* climatic conditions.

Last weekend, the city was host to the start of the Formula One season, with the Melbourne Grand Prix held at Albert Park on Port Phillip Bay. The southern city’s title as the sporting capital of Australia was on show as over 400,000 people turned out for the four day festival of speed.

What was also on show was Melbourne’s changeable weather.

We had the autumn heatwave continuing, with temperatures over 35 degrees for the F1 practice and qualifying. Try driving around at 300km ph strapped into a racing car with a throbbing 1000 horsepower engine in your earhole while wearing helmets, balaclavas, gloves, fire-resistant long-johns and a racing suit in 35 degrees with a track temperature of over 50! World Champion Max Verstappen was certainly earning his 65 million bucks a year!

Then, as only Melbourne can do, we had torrential rain on race morning. The track turned into a river and support races were cancelled.

Out came the Formula One cars for the main race and teams had to gamble on which tyres to use. Wet weather tyres for rain, intermediates for light rain, soft slick tyres for drying conditions or the hard compound slick tyres for warmer weather?! It seemed drivers would be competing against Mother Nature as much as each other and that is how it played out.

We had sun at the start of the race, then the rain came, plus wild winds. Cars went everywhere.

Hometown heroes were no exception. Jack Doohan crashed out early and Oscar Piastri spun out on the wet track while holding down second place and challenging for the lead. It was jaw-dropping to see these hi-tech, sophisticated machines with the world’s best drivers spinning around like Bambi on ice.

I thought this should be my topic for the next day’s Herald Sun coverage of the race. The weather certainly played a part in the results, therefore I had to come up with an idea based on that.

I’m a big fan of Formula One and have been for a long time. There are some great traditions in this sport and one of them was the pit boards that teams used to hold out to relay messages to the drivers as the cars went screaming past. Of course, now it’s all done via radios and pit engineers can talk to the drivers. Warning: sometimes the language is colourful!

I thought it might be fun to use a pit board to relay a most important piece of information to the leading McLaren driver, Lando Norris, who eventually won the race. The message would have to be something crucially significant to the driver. Pit next lap? Lap time? How far to go and distance between him and second place? No. I thought the pit board should inform the driver of a most vital piece of information: that Melbourne has four seasons in one race … which it did that day, so beware. Obviously Lando did take note and took the chequered flag.

The only problem now is that now I can’t get that song out of my head!

POLL

GLOSSARY

• squalls: sudden, strong winds or brief, intense storms over or involving lots of water
• Crowded House: Australian and New Zealand rock band formed in Melbourne in 1985 by founding members Neil Finn and Paul Hester, who were both former members of Split Enz, and Nick Seymour
• turbulent: tempestuous, tumultuous, state of turmoil

EXTRA READING

Melb Grand Prix or criminal spree

Grand Prix crowns new F1 king

Youngest Aussie to win Grand Prix

QUICK QUIZ

1. Who are the two Australian drivers who raced in the Grand Prix last weekend?
2. How many people descended on day four of the racing festival in Melbourne?
3. Who is the current F1 World Champion?
4. Who won the 2025 Melbourne Grand Prix?
5. Which team does the winner drive for?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Humour analysis
After reading and analysing the Mark Knight cartoon in the Kids News explainer, complete the following analysis questions to help you get the full humour out of his drawing.
Mark Knight cartoon analysis:
What is the main issue Mark Knight is highlighting:

Who is portrayed in the cartoon?

How are they portrayed?

What is the humour in the drawing?

Who might agree with his viewpoint?

Who might disagree or possibly be offended by this viewpoint?

Do you think he makes a good point? Explain your answer.

Time: allow 25 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

2. Extension
Write a response to this cartoon from the viewpoint of one of the people or objects portrayed in the cartoon. Think, what would be their response to the speech bubble and satire from the cartoon.

Write or draw your response below.

Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Visual Arts, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

VCOP ACTIVITY
What happens next?
Imagine this story is part of an animated series made up of three cartoons. The three cartoons tell the complete story and this article is only Part One. Think about what the rest of the story could be and draw the next two cartoons that tell the story.

Time: allow 30 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Visual Arts, Visual Communication Design, Critical and Creative Thinking