Verstappen was nearly two-tenths clear of his team-mate Sergio Perez in a Red Bull Racing one-two while Williams was left to lick its wounds.
Having worked to repair a damaged chassis following the Australian Grand Prix, Sargeant found the wall midway through the session to draw the red flag.
The American managed just 10 laps before crashing to end the session at the foot of the timesheets, 1.3s slower than team-mate Alex Albon.
Carlos Sainz was third fastest from George Russell while Oscar Piastri, the sole Australian in the session, was eighth fastest.
Daniel Ricciardo was absent as he lent his RB to Ayumu Iwasa, who completed one of the team’s two mandatory F1 rookie appearances.
Iwasa was among the first out on track, the only rookie taking part in the session.
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Traffic was an early issue with Russell caught up behind a McLaren and Iwasa’s RB in the final chicane, while Sainz encountered an Alpine exiting the second corner, forcing him to abort his lap.
Lando Norris set the early pace with a 1:32.767s, just over a second slower than the best Free Practice 1 effort from 2023.
The McLaren driver all but matched Verstappen’s effort from a year ago inside the opening 10 minutes, with a 1:31.781s that left him 0.032s clear of Sergio Perez and 0.057s faster than Fernando Alonso—until the Spaniard set an identical time to Norris.
It was tight at the top with George Russell only 0.044s away from the outright pace after 18 minutes while the two Ferrari drivers logged identical times, 1:31.913s.
Though one of the first on track, it was only at the 20-minute mark that Iwasa recorded his first time, a casual 1:34.803s to be the slowest of the 18 drivers to have logged laps to that point.
Invariably, Verstappen rose to the top soon after as he logged a 1:31.463s on a set of medium tyres – Norris’ earlier effort on the hard rubber.
After 30 minutes, the red flag was shown when Logan Sargeant crashed at Dunlop, the final left-hander at the end of the opening sequence of corners.
The American ran wide, dropping his right-hand wheels onto the grass, which pitched him into a spin and the barrier.
His car hit the wall with both ends though, Sargeant able to climb free from the wreckage unhindered.
It comes at a bad time for Williams, which was forced to repair Alex Albon’s car at its Grove factory in the time since the Australian GP after he crashed in opening practice in Melbourne.
That repaired chassis is the one Sargeant is using this weekend; the team still without a spare.
Under the stoppage, Lewis Hamilton sat fastest with a best time of 1:30.543s, almost a second fastest than Verstappen had managed.
The Mercedes driver set his best on the soft tyres one of the few drivers to have taken the red-walled rubber to that point in the session.
The Williams was cleared and the session restarted with 18 minutes remaining, prompting a flurry of activity to get track position ahead of their soft tyre runs.
Fastest of anyone through the first and third sector, Verstappen returned to the top of the timesheets with a 1:30.056s, followed by his Red Bull Racing team-mate, Sergio Perez, with a 1:30.237s.
The qualifying simulations saw Oscar Piastri rise to eighth fastest, 1.1s away from Verstappen but 0.08s clear of Norris.
With focus switching back to long run pace after that, that was how the session ended – Verstappen fastest from Perez, Sainz, Russell, and Hamilton.
Yuki Tsunoda was ninth fastest for RB in an encouraging session for the Italian team, with Ricciardo poised to return to the cockpit for Free Practice 2.
That session begins at 15:00 local time, 17:00 AEDT.
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