The chaotic start of the 2002 Australian Grand Prix is still unbelievable to watch

The Australian Grand Prix is nearly here and it’s exciting to have Albert Park back on the calendar after seeing the race postponed in both 2020 and 2021.

The new season continues in Melbourne, and all of the 20 drivers will be looking for a positive result, which naturally will stem from a clean getaway come lights out at the start of the race.

Certainly, they’ll be hoping for a better opening to the Grand Prix than the one that happened 20 years ago in Melbourne, which saw a multi-car pile-up at the first corner of the new season which was triggered by Rubens Barrichello and Ralf Schumacher.

Ironically, the two drivers had actually got the best launches off of the grid and so the incident didn’t come from a struggle off of the line, more was it a case that they were just too eager for the same piece of tarmac.

With Rubens leading towards the first corner and Ralf hunting him down, the pair ended up colliding at the braking zone and, dramatically, Schumacher was sent airborne.

In the chaos behind, several cars were wiped out as many simply panicked at seeing a Williams flying through the air rather than running along the track, and the crash has been shared once more by F1 on Twitter ahead of the Grand Prix:

Drama at the start 20 years ago!