These are the most exciting season openers of the past 20 years

Australia has been hosting the opening race of the Formula 1 season for a long time now. Although they were not always the most exciting races, over the past 20 years we have seen some great season openers.

That the first race of the season was held in Austria in 2020 because of the coronavirus. As such, this certainly turned into an interesting race where many unexpected things happened, culminating in the podium that consisted of Valtteri Bottas, Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris, who achieved his first podium finish.

The 2016 season opener was an intense one, but not because it was such a beautiful race. Fernando Alonso, in fact, made a violent crash, which briefly made for very scary images as his car lay upside down, buried in the tyre pile. Alonso came away with a broken rib.

The first race of 2009 was also a special one: Here Brawn GP made its debut, and immediately managed a 1-2. It was the start of a very strong season for the team, and they gathered enough points to win the championship.

Check out our Instagram post for more exciting season openers!