Leclerc: We did a great job as a team

What is pole for the Grand Prix, might not have been for Leclerc but that did not detract him from sporting the biggest smile in Parc Ferme, in the wake of his 21st top spot start and setting himself up for his sixth victory in the top-flight. He has not won since Austria 2022.

Leclerc said afterwards: "I think we did a great job as a team. We know in the Sprint weekends it's more important than ever to have a good FP1 and we did. We started with a strong base thanks to the work the guys had done to prepare for this weekend with the car feeling good straight away.

"The lap, I was happy throughout qualifying, the last lap in Q3 there were some mistakes here and there but I think it wasn't easy for everyone. Really happy we are on pole."

As for Saturday's Sprint Shootout, Leclerc added: "We start from scratch again, with the whole day given over to the Sprint, but for now we can enjoy this pole position for Sunday."

In the sister Ferrari, Carlos Sainz was back to playing second fiddle to his teammate in Qualifying. The Spaniard's best effort was 0.222s shy of Leclerc's pole-winning lap time.

The Spaniard had little to say after the session at COTA: "It wasn’t a bad qualifying. I was struggling a bit in the final sector, so tomorrow I’ll try to improve there. The rest of the lap felt more or less okay and it seems we are in decent shape.

"Congratulations to Charles for grabbing pole for the team. We’ll try to score some good points over the whole weekend," predicted the Spaniard, who lies fifth in the 2023 F1 Drivers' standings on 153 points, followed by Leclerc in fifth on 145 with five race weekends remaining.

Ferrari team boss, Fred Vasseur summed up the team's 247th P1 start in F1: "Pole position is a great result, down to hard work from the whole team. There is still a long way to go this weekend, with plenty of potential pitfalls along the way.

"The hard part will be Sunday but today’s result means both our drivers are well placed to get a good result in the Grand Prix. I am very happy for Charles, as this pole is well-deserved and is a great start to his weekend. Now we want to do equally well in tomorrow’s Sprint.

"So far, our performance has matched our expectations, we are competitive over the whole lap, although it is too early to have a clear picture of the race. Already today we have seen that the fight is going down to the thousandths of a second.

"It will be vital to carry on working like this, preparing the execution of every part of the weekend right down to the smallest detail," reckoned Vasseur, whose Ferrari team are third in the 2023 F1 Constructors' standings on 298 points, chasing second-placed Mercedes who have 298 points, after 17 Rounds.