Difference between revisions of "Daniel Melrose"

Revision as of 21:56, 14 July 2016

Daniel Melrose

Nationality	Australian
Born	26 June, 1985 Sydney, Australia
Formula One
Debut Season	2004
Latest Season	2018
Current Team	Kmart Holden Racing Team
Car Number	32
Former Teams	Minardi Ferrari BMW Sauber Mercedes Marussia Valerian
Races	181 (180 starts)
Championships	4 (2005, 2007, 2009, 2010)
Victories	35
Podiums	64
Points	1057
Pole Positions	26
Fastest Laps	34
First Race	2004 Australian Grand Prix
First Victory	2004 Canadian Grand Prix
Last Victory	2011 Monaco Grand Prix II
Last Race	2018 Australian Grand Prix II (ongoing)
Best Finish	1st (4 times)
F1RWRS
Debut Season	2010
Latest Season	2017
Current Team
Car Number
Former Teams	JLD MRT ArrowTech Jones Racing Simpson Motorsports Holden F1RWRS Racing Team Dofasco Racing Autodynamics Grand Prix Boxtel Engineering
Races	94 (77 starts)
Championships	0
Victories	2
Podiums	14
Points	161
Pole Positions	1
Fastest Laps	5
First Race	2010 German Grand Prix
First Victory	2011 Belgian Grand Prix
Last Victory	2011 English Grand Prix
Last Race	2017 Chinese Grand Prix
Best Finish	2nd (2011)

Daniel Melrose (Born June 26, 1985 in Sydney, Australia) is an Australian racing driver who is most famous for his stint in Formula One. In his 7 year full-time career, he became the youngest ever Formula One world champion at 20 years and 101 days, the youngest ever double and youngest ever triple world champion. He has also the inaugural (and so far only) F1 Rejects World Champion, and is a two-time race winner in the Formula 1 Rejects World Race Series. Melrose is currently still racing in the F1RWRS after previous stints in the Rejects of LFS series and the F1 Rejects Indy Championship Series.

Early Racing Career

Daniel spent most of his early childhood in Sydney, Australia where he did many kart races both in Sydney and around the state. He was inspired by Former World Champion Chris Dagnall after meeting him when he was just 6 years old.

In 1999, after spending several years as part of the Precision Motorsport young driver program alongside fellow Australian and close friend Dave Simpson, he was invited by Ferrari to become part of their young driver program, an offer which he accepted. From there, he rapidly raised through the ranks becoming 2001 Australia Formula 3 champion, 2002 British Formula 3 champion and 2003 International F3000 champion, before being placed in the Minardi team for the 2004 Formula One season. In the process of winning the British Formula 3 Championship, he won the Macau F3 Grand Prix in one of his many top drawer aggressive drives that would typify his driving style for the rest of his career.

Formula One Career

2004 - Minardi

In the 2003 off-season, Ferrari paid Minardi several million dollars (The actual amount was rumoured to be in the region of $30-40 million) to place Melrose in a race drive alongside Hungarian Zsolt Baumgartner for 2004. Minardi put the money to good use, as immediately it became evident that the updated Minardi PS04B coupled with a new-spec Cosworth engine suited Melrose's naturally aggressive driving style. As a result a smattering of points and top-10 finishes for the Minardi team was expected.

Melrose kept up his end of the deal, as in his very first qualifying session in Australia he put the Minardi a magnificent 12th on the grid before driving to a 8th place finish. It could have been better however as he was running 5th with a few laps to go before a late-race error put him behind several other cars. Round 2 was in Malaysia and Melrose made a mistake in qualifying which meant he was only 16th on the grid. From there, he made some headway through the field, and was on track for a top 10 finish before a late-race technical problem forced him to nurse the car home. For the next few events, he hauled the Minardi into solid midfield positions in both qualifying and race trim, including a superb drive to his second carrer points finish in the wet at Monaco.

The following European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring was arguably Melrose's best drive in his career up to that point. Despite retiring after a collision whilst trying to lap Italian Giorgio Pantano, the Australian was consistently the fastest car on track and hounded eventual race winner Michael Schumacher for most of the race before the accident. Melrose backed up the performance in Germany with his first race victory after a stellar drive at the Canadian Grand Prix. After suffering an early puncture, the Minardi team gambled aggressively on strategy, which eventually vaulted Melrose up the field and into a surprise victory, much to the jubilation of the team.

Despite the Montreal victory, Melrose struggled to replicate the form of those two races for the second half of the year, coming close to another points finish at the British Grand Prix. The low-points of the season came at the Belgian and Italian Grand Prixs, having taken himself out on the first lap on both occasions. However, Melrose managed to turn around his run of relatively poor form by the end of the season, closing out his debut year with two back-to-back points scoring runs in Japan and Brazil. This brought up his final tally to 15 points for the year, netting him an impressive 13th place in the championship standings in his debut year.

2005 - Ferrari

Over the off season, Rubens Barrichello made some disparaging comments about his time in Ferrari which led to him being replaced by the 19 year old Melrose alongside reigning World Champion Michael Schumacher. Some thought that it was a risk for Ferrari to pick the sophomore Australian, as it was the first time the Maranello squad had signed on someone so inexperienced since Frenchman Jean Alesi after he spent just a season and a half at Tyrrell. However, encouraging pre-season testing pace from the Australian silenced some of the critics.

The pre-season form continued to Australia where Melrose became the third Australian to score a podium at his home race behind surprise winner Christian Klien and Mark Webber, who became the first Australian since Rhys Davies in 2003 to score that achievement, about half a minute before Melrose. However, the next two races were disasters for Melrose as he failed to score points in either while struggling with understeer in the updated 2004 car. Another pointless race in Spain came after he scored his first win for Ferrari in front of the Tifosi at the Imola Circuit, which was the first win for the new Ferrari F2005. However it was his second win, by over a lap at Monaco no less, which really kicked off his championship campaign as he won the next three races on the trot to catapult himself into a comfortable lead in the world championship, ahead of the likes of Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso.

The race in the United States was one of the most controversial in Formula One history, with the Michelin teams pulling out due to safety concerns. The situation within the Ferrari team after the race wasn't any better however, when Melrose broke team orders to return to the garage immediately after the trophy presentation. Instead, he returned to the podium to help longtime friend Dave Simpson celebrate his first ever podium finish in the latter's debut race for Melrose's former team Minardi.

At the next race in France, Melrose had his first brush with officialdom when he got placed on probation for dangerous driving whilst trying to hold onto 6th place. That probation from France turned into a suspended one race ban at the very next race at Silverstone, after he was involved in a collision with Sauber's Jacques Villeneuve in the pit lane during the race thanks to a dangerous release at his second pitstop. Sauber then appealed the decision handed down against Melrose as they felt he should have been banned for one race.

Despite the setbacks, it seemed that the Australian was well on his way to his first world championship until the circus reached the Hockenheim circuit for the German Grand Prix. There, rain fell for most of the weekend and in the dreadful conditions on Friday, Melrose speared off the track at high speed at turn 1 head first into a concrete wall, breaking his right ankle. Ferrari's test driver Luca Badoer was drafted in for the weekend and the next race at the Hungaroring, where he scored his first world championship points for 7th place. Melrose was ready to return for the Turkish Grand Prix at the brand new Istanbul Park Circuit, but Sauber had won their World Motorsports Council appeal which meant Melrose was forced to miss Turkey as well.

When Melrose returned for the Italian Grand Prix, his lead in the world championship had been cut down from 23 to just 3 points over Fernando Alonso, which became 1 point after the race had concluded. Determined to win the championship, Melrose put in a blistering drive on an three stop strategy from pole to win the Belgian Grand Prix. A similar strategy at the next race in Brazil took him one step closer to the championship as he finished second behind Kimi Raikkonen, with Alonso having a shocker by his standards.

Another second place finish at the next race in the Japanese Grand Prix, despite lapping very slowly and lacking grip in the last few laps as he stayed out on intermediates on a drying track, meant that he became the youngest ever Formula One World Champion as Alonso had failed to finish the race. Melrose's 2005 season ended with a quiet drive to 5th in China, having spent most of the afternoon battling with the Saubers and Tiago Monteiro's Jordan.

2006-2009 - BMW Sauber

2006

Despite the championship win, animosity between Melrose and the Ferrari team had built up considerably after two high-profile collisions with teammate Schumacher and the incident at Indianapolis in the first half of 2005. Eventually, tensions reached such a high point that his position in the Ferrari team became untenable and Melrose was soon on the market for for a new drive in 2006. Melrose received offers from Honda, who had just bought out the BAR team, and the new BMW Sauber team, who he eventually signed for alongside Canadian Jacques Villeneuve.

Pre-Season testing was again encouraging for the Australian, with the BMW shown to be close to the leading pace set by Renault. However, the F1.06 proved to be shockingly unreliable in the first part of the season, with four mechanically-induced retirements in the first five races. BMW promptly responded with a new upgraded-spec car for the Spanish Grand Prix, in which Melrose flourished with a strong drive to third place, his first podium and indeed points finish of the season.

From there, the defending champion enjoyed an exceptional second half of the year, including three victories on the trot in Britain, Canada and the United States. Melrose finished on the podium in 9 of the last eleven races of the season, with an engine failure in China and an early smash in Brazil the only blots on his copybook, as he recovered to finish a fine 4th in the standings after a torrid start to the year.

2007

Pre-season testing for 2007 was a different story, as Melrose was struggling for balance in the new BMW F1.07 and looked like he would lose out to the Ferraris, McLarens, and even his new teammate Robert Kubica in the title race that year. In light of his pre-season difficulties, the former champion did his utmost to drive around the problems, as he went on to win 4 races, including a highly emotional first Australian Grand Prix victory. However, his most impressive win was his complete whitewash of the Monaco Grand Prix where he finished a mammoth two laps ahead of second place Robert Kubica, in the first 1-2 of BMW Sauber's short history.

Despite his four victories in the first half of the year, he couldn't break away from the titanic scrap for the world title between himself, the Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen, and the McLaren duo of Sammy Jones and Rubens Barrichello. Indeed, Melrose would only score one victory after the British Grand Prix, but that did nothing to stop Melrose from delivering drives out of the top drawer in a car that was losing its grip on the top of the tree.

Controversy erupted at the Hungarian Grand Prix when in the closing stages of the race, Melrose was fast zoning in on teammate Kubica. While many expected BMW would force Kubica to yield, the team held their nerve and let the two race. As the laps counted down, Melrose hounded his Polish teammate with repeated attempts at a passing move, including a divebomb on the final lap which nearly took the pair of them out. However, Kubica held on to score his first career victory in front of the adoring Eastern European crowd, much to Melrose's chagrin and at a potential cost to his title tilt.

As the intense title race headed into Belgium a few races later, a brilliant start catapulted the Australian from 8th to 5th before another one of his aggressive drives hauled him all the way to 2nd, capped off with a typically aggressive move on title rival Jones into La Source with a handful of laps to go. The next race was at Japan, where he qualified a relatively mediocre 7th on the grid. Rain the next day and a mid-race strategy change by the Australian however hauled him into podium contention before he was passed by Sebastian Vettel with 10 laps to go, which relegated him to a 4th place finish behind second time winner Kubica, Barrichello and Vettel.

At the next race, a mid-race puncture in China put him out of podium and, seemingly, championship contention before a textbook comeback drive hauled him up to 7th, before a red flag for a massive accident between Kubica and Spyker's Phoenix McAllister ended the race early. Melrose was adamant that had the race not been red flagged he could have finished higher than 7th, as he was only 7 seconds behind 4th placed David Coulthard when the race was stopped.

Heading into the final race of the season, Melrose was two points behind championship leader Sammy Jones and tied with Felipe Massa, both of whom had retired late in the previous Grand Prix. Desipte starting third behind Massa and Barrichelo, Melrose's season ended with an emphatic victory at the Brazilian Grand Prix, which was enough to secure the Australian his second championship victory, and the first for BMW in Formula One.

2008

Despite being the reigning champion, 2008's pre-season tests spelled more trouble for Melrose, as he was miles off the pace being set up the front, to the point where he was embarrassingly slow at the Barcelona test. Despite all the struggles with the new car, Melrose still managed several brilliant performances, including a solid strategic drive to a podium in Australia, and two typically forceful victories in Monaco and Canada. This meant that as the first half of the season came to a close, Melrose was only 9 points away from joint championship leaders Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton, and in with a shot of winning a historic 3rd world championship crown in unquestionably inferior machinery.

However, with the team stopping development on the F1.08 to focus on developing the 2009 car and Melrose's continued inability to overcome the inherent understeer in the car, he failed to score another victory in the second half of the year. Melrose finished a lonely 6th in the championship, a long way behind the top 4 and teammate Kubica, and a significant margin ahead of the likes of Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel behind. Despite the car's relative pace falling down the pecking order, he still managed to take it to a podium in Belgium and came close to a pole position at the next race in Italy. Despite not being on the ultimate pace, Melrose still managed to collect a smattering of minor points finishes to close out the year, blighted by a strange rear wing failure at the Brazilian Grand Prix pitching the Australian into the turn 1 wall.

2009

BMW and Melrose redoubled their efforts over the off season after the disappointing 2008 campaign, resulting in a car which was both incredibly quick and consistent in the hands of Melrose, much to the credit of test driver Dave Simpson who had done much of the development work on the car. This resulted in Melrose dominating all of the pre-season tests, until the emergence of the Brawn team, a revival of the Honda F1 project, offered some serious competition to Melrose and BMW.

After several titanic battles between Melrose and Brawn's Jenson Button in the early races, the Australian was involved in a controversial incident at the end of the Spanish Grand Prix, as he crossed the finish line with the entire front-right corner of the car severely damaged after a last lap collision with Luca Badoer in the USF1 car. In the midst of the titanic fight between himself and Button, Melrose made an announcement on July 10 that shocked the motorsport world when he announced that he was joining the Formula 1 Rejects World Race Series, the breakaway series to the Formula 1 Championship, for 2010.

The decision seemed to have a marked affect on Melrose's driving, as several crucial victories were blighted by several equally questionable driving errors as Button's relentless consistency piled the pressure on the Australian. However, the two-time champion managed to make it a third title with a fighting 6th place finish at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix after struggling with persistent gearbox gremlins to take the championship by a solitary point.

2010 - Mercedes Team Europe

Due to BMW pulling out of Formula One, citing that they've achieved all their goals in F1, Melrose became the biggest free agent on the market during the off season. Teams up and down the grid and even around the world in other categories were clamouring for his signature for 2010. In the end he moved to the Brawn team, which had just been bought out by German manufacturer Mercedes-Benz. While some teams did offer higher salaries than what Mercedes eventually paid for the superstar, Melrose reportedly accepted their offer because the contract allowed him to drive in both F1 and the F1RWRS for 2010 before making his decision for 2011 and beyond.

With a raft of new rule changes however, including the controversial switch to the two-race weekend format, it looked like the Australian and his new team team would have their work cut out through the year to fight for the world title. Testing times suggested a mammoth four-way fight for both titles between Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes, with the likes of Jacques Villeneuve and F1 returnee Rhys Davies playing the role of spoilers. Those predictions were confirmed in Bahrain with relatively subdued 3rd and 4th places for the Australian. A few more quiet races followed before the reigning champion scored his first victory at Fuji. A strong weekend in his home country followed, as Melrose took his second win on home soil in the Sunday race. From there, Melrose continued to score consistent points and podium positions to vault himself into the championship lead.

Before the German Grand Prix weekend, Melrose finally revealed to the world what his plans for 2011 would be. Many had speculated that he would try to balance a Formula 1 season alongside the F1RWRS for a second year in a row, but he defied all expectations and announced that 2010 would be his last year in Formula 1, despite being close to dead-last in the F1RWRS standings.

The Formula One championship was still far from over however with as many as half a dozen drivers still in realistic contention for the championship, Melrose decided to focus solely on trying to win the F1 title over the rest of the year, with former F1 champion Chris Dagnall taking over Melrose's driving duties in the F1RWRS. Over the course of the next five weekends from Germany, Melrose scored three victories and four other podium finishes to tighten his grasp on a 4th World Championship as the season hit the home stretch. He clinched that fourth world title at the Uruguayan Grand Prix weekend, where a dominating performance saw the champion-elect score wins in both races. However, Melrose was unable to add another win to the tally as his full-time F1 career ended with a disastrous 21st place finish in Abu Dhabi.

2011-2015, 2017 - Part-time Appearances

2011 - Mercedes

This would not mark the end of Melrose's F1 career however, as the champion made several sporadic appearances with the Mercedes team. The Australian's first appearance was at the Monaco Grand Prix in place of the benched Nathan McKane, who had been banned by the FIA at the previous race. Despite having never driven the car, Melrose immediately showed his class by finished 2nd in the Saturday race from 3rd on the grid. He followed it up with a front-row start on Sunday before converting it into a popular race victory, the 35th of his career.

Melrose would return later in the year on two separate occasions, firstly as a replacement for the banned James James Davies, and secondly as a permanent replacement for the British superstar after the latter's acrimonious split from the Mercedes team. While Melrose was unable to add to the win tally, he did display his undeniable class with three poles on the trot in Singapore and India, while also being robbed of two certain victories around the Marina Bay circuit. Despite only starting 9 of a potential 36 races, Melrose still managed to score enough points to record a 16th place finish in the championship.

2012 - Mercedes

After a heart-breaking near miss in the F1RWRS championship race against Nathanael Spencer, Melrose refocused his attention on establishing his eponymous Melrose Racing Team in the series. However, with Mercedes put the call out to the Australian to once again make a return, he was quick to return to the category where he made his mark. Melrose made a one-off appearance in the European Grand Prix weekend to replace former teammate Robert Kubica who had been benched by the FIA the prior weekend. While he was unable to repeat the heroics of his 2011 performances, the Australian still brought the car home in 7th in the Sunday race, banking valuable points for the team.

2013 - Ferrari, Mercedes

It didn't take long for Melrose to return to Formula One, as by now he had developed a reputation of being able to jump in a car and instantly be competitive off the bat. Former employers Ferrari took advantage of this by deciding to bury the hatchet that had long plagued their relationship by hiring him to deputize for the benched Mark Webber at Istanbul. While Melrose was unable to match the race-winning pace of teammate James James Davies, the man he had subbed for two years prior, he still managed to score a small helping of points around the demanding circuit.

That would prove to be the first of two appearances for Melrose in the 2013 Formula One season, the second of which was back in his adopted home Mercedes F1. Coming in at short notice for injured driver and friend Jeroen Krautmeir in Portugal, the former champion repeated his results from Istanbul with a 7th and a fastest lap across the two races.

2014 - Marussia

Melrose would only make one start in 2014 for minnows Marussia F1 as a substitute for benched Frenchman Alexandre Premat at Donnington for the British Grand Prix. After qualifying a lowly 24th on the grid for the first race, Melrose managed to hustle his car to a scarcely believable 8th place, scoring the team's first points of the year. This result proved to be Marussia's best of the 2014 season.

2015 - Ferrari

Melrose returned to F1 yet again for another weekend in 2015 as a supersub for Ferrari. After an accident injured the team's regular driver Evgeny Restov, the former champion was drafted in to drive the famed #27 Ferrari at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend. Melrose continued his streaks of scoring at least one point in his various substitutions with a 9th place finish in race 1. However, he was unable to repeat the performance in race 2 after a late Transmission failure ended his afternoon.

2017 - Valerian

With the return of the Australian Grand Prix to the calendar for the first time since 2010, Melrose was eager to make an appearance in front of his home crowd at Surfers Paradise. To that end, new team Valerian Formula provided him the opportunity to make a one-off appearance for the team. The Australian didn't disappoint the hometown crowd, as he went on to score a solid points finish in the Sunday race in front of an appreciative crowd.

2018 - Return with Holden

After spending much of the last several years substituting for various drivers in F1 and other categories, Melrose finally made his long-awaited full-time return to F1 with the new works Holden Racing Team. With the team also signing former F1 and F1RWRS champion Rhys Davies, a fellow Australian, as his teammate, many expected the team to be instantly competitive.

However, the car proved to be a great disappointment, as both drivers complained of a general lack of grip, rendering both as midfield also-rans. Despite the difficulties, Melrose still managed to score points at a variety of different tracks, including Bahrain, Turkey and Cyprus.

The Finnish Grand Prix turned into one of the highlights of Melrose's season with HRT. The former champion showed a calm head to take 4th place amidst a chaotic Saturday race, before backing up with a 9th place finish on Sunday, marking the first time Melrose had scored points in both races in a weekend since 2011.

A few weeks later in monsoonal conditions at the Australian Grand Prix, Melrose managed to score an unlikely but popular pole position infront of the adoring Surfers Paradise crowd. While he was unable to maintain the front-running pace in the race, he still managed to convert the pole to a solid points finish.

F1RWRS Career

2010-2011 - JLD Motorsport

2010

Looking for a new challenge and disenchanted by the high-stakes political bickering in Formula 1, Daniel Melrose followed former Brawn driver Frank Zimmer to the Formula 1 Rejects World Race Series. The reigning F1 champion signed on as lead driver for the JLD Motorsport team, which was a joint effort between German manufacturer Mercedes and Porsche, alongside former BMW Sauber and Precision teammate Dave Simpson. Both Simpson and Melrose tried to balance a full time Formula One campaign alongside the F1RWRS, with Simpson focusing more on the F1RWRS and Melrose more on trying to win a fourth world title.

Whilst this strategy worked in getting him that title, it came at the expense of Melrose's F1RWRS campaign as ended up a lowly 17th in the championship, having missed the final 3 races of the year and been replaced by Chris Dagnall for the final two. There was some promise in Melrose's season however as in the final race he did in Bahrain. There, he put in a solid drive for a season best result of 6th place along with the fastest lap of the race.

2011

In 2011, Melrose decided to retire from Formula One on a full time basis to focus on other categories elsewhere, including the F1RWRS. For the second year in a row however his season started slowly with just a sole 5th place finish to his name after round 3.

However a brilliant mid-season streak from Luxembourg to the Tasman Grand Prix in Adelaide, including two wins in Belgium and England, and a second place put him solidly in the lead of the championship after 10 rounds.

The team entered a slump in the final third of the season however, which culminated to an embarrassing double DNPQ for the JLD team at the Australian Grand Prix at Bathurst. This coupled with a late season push by Briton Nathanael Spencer meant that Melrose ended up losing the championship to the Brit by 7 points after both failed to score points at the final round in Laguna Seca.

2012 - Melrose Racing Team

Behind the scenes at JLD over the second half of the 2011 season, a consortium comprising of Melrose's own racing team, Melrose's former employers BMW and title sponsor QANTAS made a bid to take over the JLD team after both Mercedes and the Volkswagen group pulled out their support of the team.

By the end of the year, a deal was struck between the various parties which meant that MRT and BMW would take over the JLD team in a 70/30 split with Melrose and incumbent teammate Jeroen Krautmeir as the two drivers for season 2012.

Despite the resources available to the team, Melrose's season got off to the worst possible start with a double DNPQ but came back strongly with a third place in round 3. Both MRTs continued to have inconsistent seasons through the year and Melrose was absolutely thrashed by his younger teammate on occasion as the Australian simply couldn't get either the M3 or the M3B to work with his driving style. Despite that, Melrose scored 4 podium finishes over the course of the season for an eventual 7th place finish in the Driver's championship, including finishing second in the same race that Krautmeir scored MRT's only win that year.

During the oval testing session that MRT conducted at the Talladega Superspeedway Melrose wrote off both his race car and spare car in the space of 2 days after having several enormous accidents over the course of the test, the last of which gave him a moderate concussion. Another huge accident the next week at Laguna Seca where he car became airbourne and barrel-rolled down the front straight gave him another conucssion meant that he had to sit out the season ending race at Indianapolis, which was a double points race that year.

At that point, disheartened by continual lack of success in the series and after a failed bid to become the new Commissioner of the F1RWRS, Melrose announced his retirement from driving duties in the F1RWRS effective immediately.

2013 - ArrowTech

For a few weeks, Melrose seemed content with retirement at just 27 years of age but eventually decided to make a sensational return to driving duties for the ArrowTech ART team. It immediately became clear that Melrose and the ArrowTech car gelled together in pre-season testing, showing he had lost none of his touch despite the string of accidents. This form continued into the early flyaway races with Melrose leading the team's charge with 3 points finishes in the first 3 races, including a sensational 2-3 finish for the team at the 2013 F1RWRS Mexican Grand Prix with Melrose leading home teammate Daniel Martins.

However after that point the team lost its way in the early development race. with Melrose only scoring 1 point in the following 6 races, the race where he scored that point being one of his best to date similar to several burn from the stern performances in the past. ArrowTech and Melrose returned to form at the Belgian Grand Prix. On race day, he damaged the front wing of his car early on before setting about simply driving the wheels off the ArrowTech car for 3rd place, his second podium finish of the season. However, Melrose was adamant that had he not thrown it into the wall early on he stood a good chance of winning that race.

After qualifying for the Mediterranean Grand Prix Melrose was arrested, charged and released on bail for trashing his hotel room after MRT's absolutely horrific showing in qualifying which resulted in a double DNQ, a shocking result even by MRT's poor standards that year.

2013-2014 - Jones Racing

2013

In the wake of the incident in Cyprus, Melrose had a public spat with Arrowtech's latest shareholder Prince Falik, which led to the Australian tearing his two year contract with the team over a year early before accepting an offer from Jones Racing to drive for them in the final two races of the season. This came after Jones' incumbent driver Kay Lon got the sack after being arrested by Chinese authorities over alleged sexual assault charges. Despite being disappointing in the two races for the Jones team, he got a full time contract for 2014 with an option to extend his contract for 2015.

At the now non-championship Budweiser 500, driving for Horizon Motorsport, he finished 10th from 19th on the grid, beating home new boss Jones by over a lap in the process.

2014

Pre-Season testing for the Jones team, and Melrose in particular, was promising with many predicting that the team would be points contenders throughout the year. The Australian didn't fail to deliver on those predictions as he scored podium placed finishes in both of the first two races. His performance in the season opener in Adelaide was particularly special as not only did he remain on the lead lap against the much faster cars of Dagnall and the MRTs, he was consistently the best of the rest in the race all afternoon.

More points at the Long Beach round confirmed his status as a dark horse amongst the upper-midfield runners. A couple of more third placed finishes in France and Belgium plus a number of other points finishes meant that Melrose spent the majority of the year right in the thick of the battle for best of the rest honours. This string of good performances led to team boss Sammy Jones taking up his offer for the Australian for 2015, although a performance clause was inserted in the contract which baffled many pundits.

Before the Chinese Grand Prix, Melrose announced that MRT would open up a consultancy firm for 2015 which quickly lead to a technical partnership deal with Autodynamics Grand Prix, one of the two new teams for 2015. The proposal didn't sit well with Sammy Jones however and it eventually lead to Melrose terminating his Jones Racing contract for 2015, albeit on amicable terms. Melrose's association with Jones Racing ended on a high note with a pair of second places at the two non-championship races at the Bud Light 800 and the endurance race at the Luxembourg Grand Prix.

2015 - Simpson Motorsport

With Melrose one of the biggest free-agents on the market heading into the off-season, many teams up and down the grid were fighting for his services in 2015. Despite many predicting he'd go to Sunshine for 2015, Melrose signed a deal with the new Simpson Motorsports team, allegedly as return for the favour Melrose paid team boss and good friend Dave Simpson to get him the BMW reserve driver slot back in 2007.

Regardless of what the reason was for the decision, the alarm bells were already ringing in pre-season testing. It became apparent very quickly that many of the midfield and backmarker teams from 2014 had made a huge leap forward in terms of performance, throwing the mostly conservative plans of the Simpson Motorsport team into turmoil.

Despite persistent rumours that he was about to jump ship to Sunshine, Melrose kept his head down and tried to extract the maximum out of the ill-handling Simpson-BMW package in their bid to qualify for a race, with little success. Melrose's patience finally ran out at the Monaco Grand Prix when, after failing to pre-qualify for the third time in succession, leading to Melrose quitting the team,

In the meantime, an opening appeared at the Holden Racing Team with the sacking of Englishwoman Poppy Whitechapel. The Australian was quick to pounce at the opportunity, and immediately signed on for a 12 race deal, starting at the next race in Mexico City.

2015 - Holden Racing Team

Melrose arrived at Mexico City with a new lease of life in his now floundering F1RWRS career as he set about getting used to the HRT. While new teammate Frank Zimmer had the upper hand on the Australian all weekend, Melrose did finish a respectable 9th after a solid, if unspectacular drive amongst relatively heavy attrition.

In a car that was slowing but surely losing its pace to the midfield, Melrose failed to qualify for the first F1RWRS race at Montreal, a track where he had scored his first Formula One victory, before being taken out in a first lap collision at the next race in Great Britain.

As a result, HRT dropped down into pre-qualifying as their results had only left them a dismal 12th in the constructors championship, where only the top 11 were guaranteed berths in qualifying proper. Melrose was then sacked by the team in the fallout that resulted from it and replaced by test driver John Zimmer.

After spending several races on the sidelines while racing in Rejects of LFS, Melrose made a sensational return to the team for the final race of the F1RWRS season in Brazil, replacing incumbent Frank Zimmer who still had an outstanding warrant against him from the Brazilian Police. Despite his best efforts, Melrose was unable to haul the team out of pre-qualifying, bringing his F1RWRS career to a close for the time being.

2016-2017 - Part-time appearances

2016 - Melrose Racing Team & Dofasco

After MRT driver Kay Lon was sensationally sacked after just one race with the team, the team was left scrambling to find a replacement drivers. After overtures to both David Neuberg and Alexey Buyvolov failed, the team drafted in owner Melrose at the last minute.

Personal Life

Melrose's Helmet design

Melrose has run the same basic helmet design for virtually his entire career. He initially started off with a green and gold helmet with the Southern Cross during his early karting days before he changed it to the Boxing Kangaroo, the unofficial mascot of Australia, upon joining the Precision Motorsport Young Driver Program. He has been one of the few drivers who are vehemently against running sponsorship logos on their helmet and bending over to the pressures of commercialisation for the sake of keeping the same helmet for the duration of their careers.

Melrose currently lives alone in Munich, Germany where his team is based after spending many years living in Liechtenstein. In his early career especially, his driving almost seemed to be a way for him to deal with the "demons" in his head that seemingly plagued him for much of his teenage years, which ended up being the motivating force of his career. Melrose has one younger sibling named Joel who is currently driving for JLD Motorsport in the F3RWRS.

Melrose is known for being incredibly talkative over the radio and, as a result, his strategic ability throughout his career is second to none and while his ability to set up a car is good, he has never considered himself a great technically minded driver as he usually ends up driving around any minor problems with the car. He also has a strange habit of listening to rock music over the radio fed to him by the team to help him get into 'the zone' on any given weekend.

For all his prowess on the track, Melrose has had many issues over the years with his various personal managers, with almost all his associations with them ending on very hostile terms. One particularly bad break up with a manager, who was also in a relationship with him at the time, led to Melrose withdrawing his entry from the 2014 F1RMGP 24 Hour V8 Bathurst Enduro and swearing that he'll never have another personal manager for the rest of his career.

Whilst on a training camp in Tropico during the 2015 season, Melrose was one of the most high-profile people caught up in the Tropican-Venezuelan conflict at the time. Venezuelan president Hugo Chaves learned of the former world champion's presence in the island Nation and appointed him the new President of Tropico on the evening of June 5th. Despite initial concerns that the strong Nationalist faction on the island would be uproar over the appointment, the vast majority of the Tropican people approved of his placement, as the Australian had done much to help the explosive growth of the Tropican tourist industry over the past several years.

Complete Formula One Grand Prix results

• * The F1 points system changed for 2010
• ‡ Half points awarded as less than 75% of race distance was completed.
• † Driver did not finish the Grand Prix, but was classified as they completed over 90% of the race distance.

Complete F1RWRS Results

• * Season in Progress
• † Driver did not finish race, but was classified as they had completed 75% race distance (2010-12) or 90% race distance (2013).

Complete Rejects of LFS Results

Complete F1RICS Results

Career Summary

F1 Records Held

• Youngest Driver to score a point: 18 years, 255 days (2004 Australian Grand Prix)
• Youngest Driver to lead a lap: 18 years, 338 days (2004 European Grand Prix)
• Youngest Driver to score a fastest lap: 18 years, 352 days (2004 Canadian Grand Prix)
• Youngest Driver to win a Grand Prix: 18 years, 352 days (2004 Canadian Grand Prix)
• Youngest Driver to win a Grand Prix from pole position: 19 years, 302 days (2005 San Marino Grand Prix)
• Youngest Driver to score a Hat Trick: 19 years, 330 days (2005 Monaco Grand Prix)
• Youngest Driver to score a Grand Chelem: 19 years 330 days (2005 Monaco Grand Prix)
• Youngest Driver to lead the World Championship: 19 years, 337 days (2005 European Grand Prix)
• Youngest Driver to win the World Championship: 20 years, 101 days (2005 Japanese Grand Prix)