Listen to this article 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. Sainz’s benchmark on a scrubbed set of softs arrived shortly after Leclerc had completed a practice start, only for the Monegasque to run off track Turn 1. He ran through the gravel to compromise his tyres and the following push lap, handing Sainz the advantage as Sergio Perez pipped Max Verstappen for third. Perez had been the first driver to take to the temporary Melbourne street circuit, where in 2020 the race was cancelled late on amid what was then the outbreak …