The Ferrari driver led throughout the returning Melbourne event, which was disrupted by two safety cars – after which Leclerc dropped Verstappen each time, despite coming under heavy pressure from the Dutchman at the second restart.
Sergio Perez finished second ahead of George Russell, who was a big gainer under the second safety car, but had to hold off a charging Lewis Hamilton to the flag.
At the start, Verstappen looked to get a fractionally better start than Leclerc, but the polesitter was able to sweep across his front row rival and defend the inside line on the run to Turn 1, where behind Hamilton jumped Perez, who had been looking to follow Verstappen’s line to the outside.
Leclerc pulled a 0.6-second lead by the end of lap one of 58, with the top two exchanging fastest sectors over the next lap before the race was neutralised by the safety car’s appearance.
Carlos Sainz Jr had started on the hard tyres but got a very poor launch off the line in ninth and tumbled…
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