The Spanish Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) was the fastest this Friday in the first free practice for the Australian Grand Prix, which takes place on the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne. In the best of his laps, Sainz, who has been on the podium in the previous two races and remains second in the provisional general classification, set a time of one minute, 19 seconds and 806 thousandths, with a soft tire, the only one that fell from 1:20. The Spaniard was 571 thousandths faster than his teammate and current World Cup leader, the Monegasque Charles Leclerc, second, and the Mexican Sergio Pérez (Red Bull), who signed the third fastest time at 593 thousandths of Sainz.
The other Red Bull, with the Dutchman Max Verstappen, current champion, was fourth at 820 thousandths of the Spanish, while the British Lewis Hamilton, seven times champion of the F1 World Cup, finished seventh at 1 second and 221 thousandths of Sainz. For its part, Fernando Alonso (Alpine) concluded the session in ninth place and stopped the stopwatch 1,423 seconds off the best time, although he was overtaken by his teammate, Frenchman Esteban Ocon, who finished sixth.
After two consecutive years canceled as a result of the covid-19 pandemic, the Australian GP returns to the Formula One World Championship after a remodeling of the track, with a length of 5,303 kilometers, as the third round of the calendar, when the World Cup traditionally opened .