1978 Australian Grand Prix
| Race details | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Round 2 of the 1978 Australian Drivers' Championship | |||
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|||
| Date | 10 September 1978 | ||
| Official name | XLIII Australian Grand Prix | ||
| Location | Sandown International Motor Racing Circuit,Melbourne, Victoria, Australia | ||
| Course | Permanent racing facility | ||
| Course length | 3.100 km (1.926 mi) | ||
| Distance | 49 laps, 148.8 km (92.448 mi) | ||
| Weather | Sunny | ||
| Pole position | |||
| Driver | McLaren-Leyland | ||
| Time | 1'00.9 | ||
| Fastest lap | |||
| Driver |
 Graham McRae
|
McRae-Chevrolet | |
| Time | 1'01.9 | ||
| Podium | |||
| First | McRae-Chevrolet | ||
| Second | Matich-Repco Holden | ||
| Third | Lola-Chevrolet | ||
The 1978 Australian Grand Prix was a motor race open to cars complying with Australian Formula 1, (commonly referred to as Formula 5000 cars). It was held on 10 September 1978 at the Sandown International Motor Racing Circuit, in Victoria, Australia.
It was the forty third Australian Grand Prix held and it was the Golden Anniversary AGP with the first being run in 1928. It also doubled as Round 2 of the 1978 Australian Drivers' Championship.
John McCormack started on pole in his McLaren M23 alongside Kiwi Graham McRae in his own designed and built McRae GM3, complete with a unique clear perspex cockpit cover allowing people to see McRae at work in the car. Before the start McCormack's crew discovered in the warm up that a blown head gasket in qualifying had resulted in damage to the 5.0L Leyland's cylinder heads but had no time to replace it so McCormack started under a cloud. Vern Schuppan qualified his Ansett Team Elfin MR8 3rd with a time equal to that of McRae with the Lola's of Alan Hamilton and Jon Davison rounding out the top 5 qualifiers.
Ian Adams did not practice in his Lola T330, but was permitted to start the race from the rear of the grid.
McRae won the start and was never headed despite slowing on the start/finish line for confirmation of a 'bad sportsmanship' flag for not slowing enough past Coopers crash on lap 22, and a spin at the Dandenong Road corner (turn 7 on the old circuit) on lap 32. During the time of Cooper's crash alone McRae extended his lead over Jon Davison and Vern Schuppan by more than half the length of the almost 1 km long front straight as others slowed for the yellow flags where McRae didn't resulting in the bad sportmanship flag for McRae.
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