Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were fifth and sixth fastest in the first free practice session for the Australian Grand Prix at the Albert Park circuit. The session was twice interrupted by red flags.
36 laps. Charles and Carlos began their work on the Hard tyre, setting times of 1’20”114 and 1’20”093 respectively. They then switched to Softs on which they set their quickest times of 1’19”378 and 1’19”505. In the final part of the session, after the first red flag was brought out when the track’s GPS failed, Leclerc and Sainz went out with a high fuel load, although this did not produce much in the way of useful data as the session was ended prematurely with four minutes remaining, after Logan Sargeant stopped on track in sector 3. Charles completed 16 laps, while Carlos did 20.