In the twice red-flagged opening session on the revised and resurfaced Albert Park track, Sainz took advantage of a trip through the gravel for Leclerc to set the pace by over half a second.
The Spaniard romped to a 1m19.806s to unsurprisingly smash the existing lap record set on the previous configuration, a 1m20.486s as posted by Lewis Hamilton on his way to pole in 2019.
