Is Leclerc the best qualifier of the current F1 era?

It was Scuderia’s 243rd, their fourth in Azerbaijan, the first courtesy of Sebastian Vettel in 2018. Carlos Sainz will start on the second row after qualifying fourth but nearly a second down on Leclerc's effort in the sister Ferrari.

At the sharp end, that timesheet-topping lap by Leclerc was pure mastery in action, as he threaded his way through the unforgiving street circuit, lightly scraping walls with jaw-dropping accuracy and precision, sliding his way to the fastest time, by a couple of tenths over, Max Verstappen - perhaps the Ferrari driver's only rival for qualy master of their generation. Thus the Monegasque ending Red Bull's run of three out of three top-spot starts this season.

A Red car in P1 for the start on Sunday is just the tonic Ferrari needed, amid huge changes happening at Maranello, under the new watch of Fred Vasseur. His driver delivered for him today, providing the Frenchman with his first pole as F1 boss of the sport's greatest team.

Speaking after one of his greatest qualy laps - his third pole in Baku that takes his F1 career pole position tally to 19 - Leclerc said: "It feels really good to be back on pole and it’s something we didn’t take for granted coming here. The team did a perfect job in managing the session and I’m very happy with my lap.

"We have to see where we stand in the Sprint and the race, where we expect to be a bit more on the back foot compared to our competitors, but we will give it our all and I look forward to being back in the car for the Shootout," added Leclerc.

Sainz, in the sister car, was never comfortable around the twisty confines of the city circuit. In Q1 he was nine-tenths shy of his teammate, then in Q2 he managed to claw back the deficit, narrowing it to three-tenths in Q2, but when it really mattered, his best effort of 1:41.016s was 0.813s down on Leclerc's mega pole-winning effort.

The Spaniard summed up in the Ferrari qualy report: "It was a very tricky day for me today. Since the very beginning of free practice, I didn’t feel confident in the car and, with this format, there is obviously no time to change and try different set-ups.

"Qualifying was a bit of a mess as well, having to use two sets of new tyres in Q1 and therefore only leaving myself one set for Q3. I never got into a decent rhythm overall, my bad. I will fight back from P4 on Sunday and tonight we will focus on how we can improve the feeling in the car. Congratulations to Charles on a great lap and on securing pole for the team," added the Spaniard.

AlphaTauri-bound Laurent Mekies, still the Ferrari sporting boss, told the team's side of the story: "We are very pleased with how qualifying went, because both our cars were able to fight with the Red Bulls which had always taken pole so far this season."

"Congratulations to Charles, who was quickest of all here in Baku for the third time in a row, proving that he’s a real qualifying specialist," said Mekies. "Carlos had a tougher time of it today, as he struggled to feel confident in the car and he also had to use an extra set of Softs in Q1.

"However, in the end, this pole position and Carlos’ fourth place confirms that we have done a good job in Maranello over the past month. In fact, even though the results didn’t show it, in Melbourne we had already made progress and this qualifying performance confirms it.

"We don’t have much information on race pace, which is what we will focus on as from this evening, as we start to prepare for tomorrow’s Sprint and the Grand Prix itself. There is still a lot of work to do, but all the same, we can enjoy today’s good result for the team," declared Mekies.