Leclerc: I wanted to go for the win

Leclerc was somehow lucky that Max Verstappen sustained damage on his RB19 after a first lap clash with Mercedes' George Russell, which prevent the two-time Formula 1 Champion from overtaking the #16 Ferrari and take second.

Reflecting on his Sprint Race in Ferrari's post race brief; Leclerc said: "I wanted to go for the win but at the same time, we knew that it would be difficult due to the race pace advantage Red Bull Racing have. It’s where we are lacking and what we are focusing on improving the most.

"On the positive side, we have a strong qualifying pace and have made a good step in the right direction since our last race in Australia. Let’s see what is possible tomorrow," the Monegasque concluded.

On the other side of the Ferrari garage, Carlos Sainz has been struggling with his SF-23, qualifying over eight tenths off the pace of his teammate on Friday, and finishing the 17-lap Sprint over ten seconds from winner, Perez, in fifth.

Sainz said: "This weekend has not been an easy one for me but we’ll keep going at it. We managed to bring home some points and I’ll try to build from there. Hopefully, having completed more laps today, tomorrow I can work around the main limitations and maximise the result.

"The weekend is not over yet and in Baku you need to be ready to grab every opportunity, so now it’s maximum focus until the race is over," the Spaniard insisted.

Frédéric Vasseur, Ferrari's Team Principal, added: "When you start from pole and don’t bring home the win, you cannot be totally satisfied with the outcome.

"Having said that, Charles and Carlos produced the race we expected and delivered a good result. In Melbourne, we saw we had made progress and I think that so far this weekend, that has also been confirmed here. In qualifying trim we were quicker than Red Bull and in the race, we were able to fight with Perez and Verstappen, even if we saw there is still some work to do in terms of pace," he explained.

"Today, we’ve been able to try the Medium tyres and run the car with a heavier fuel load, which produced some useful data for us to analyse with the aim of getting even more out of our package tomorrow, when Charles again starts from pole position," Vasseur summed up.