World champion Max Verstappen led the Azerbaijan Grand Prix with Red Bull 1: 2 on Sunday at a potentially pivotal moment in the title fight after pole sitter Charles Leclerc and Ferrari suffered another emergency dose and a double retirement. Sergio Perez overtook Leclerc in the first corner before Verstappen took control of Carlos Sainz's Ferrari and then Leclerc resigned with engine problems.

George Russell was third ahead of his team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who needed help getting out of the cockpit, as was the case with his back after an afternoon wreck in his wrecked car. Verstappen's fifth victory of the season and 25th career victory strengthened his grip on the drivers' stand, Perez is second with a loss of 21 points, while the unfortunate Leclerc fell to 34 points.

"Was that a good drive or was that a good drive?" a pleased Verstappen asked over the team radio, after ending his jinx in Baku, where he had never made the podium.

It was a memorable day for Red Bull, which led Ferrari more than 80 points next week in the Constructors' Cup in the ninth round in Montreal.

As for Ferrari, his habit of grabbing defeat from the winning jaws begins with a deadly questioning of strategy or the unreliability of their ambitions for the title.

Leclerc couldn't turn the bar into a win for the fourth time and disappointedly held his head in his hands.

"Better days will come" if the team just sticks together, Sainz suggested.

That's what Mercedes tells itself and the world as it tries to unleash the potential of its cars. Despite their problems, Russell finished fourth in the title race and Mercedes was third in the designers' standings.

In the eighth season, temperatures on the track in Tierra del Fuego rose by 50 degrees. The raster cars are treated in the pre-race set by blasting dry ice in the pre-race build up.

Before the shocking performance of the Azerbaijan national anthem, Leclerc looked cold, leaning against a shadow wall with a friendly soul holding a red Ferrari umbrella.

Leclerc's form also cooled at the beginning of the season after he failed to win three posts.

The Italian investigation into the failed strategy that Monaco last mentioned, and evidence of qualifications and experience, leave Leclerca hoping that the "man on Saturday" will be the "king of Sunday."

But Perez, sharing the front row, helped rip that plan to shreds when as he charged past on the short run to the first turn as Leclerc locked up.

After eight laps, Sainz sighed and stopped the engine, causing Leclerc to fight unequally against the two Red Bulls.

Verstappen defeated Perez and took the lead at the start of lap 15, while Leclerc set the fastest lap,

Perez then struck and got behind Leclerc, who was trying to overtake Verstappen. The eight-second loss in the third half of the race was over.

When he did start gaining, Leclerc's race went up in a cloud of smoke when his engine blew on lap 21 to leave the Red Bulls an unmissable shot at an empty Baku goal. "Difficult to understand for now," said Leclerc. "It hurts."

The fight for a vacancy on the stage was led by Russell, 2017 winner Pierre Gasly Daniel Ricciardo of Alpha Tauri and Hamilton.

As the midway point approached poor Zhou Guanyu reacted with a dismayed "Are you kidding me, again?" at being told over the team radio he had to retire, for the third time in four races.

Verstappen seems to have a big race behind him, but he and his team of pitlans will remember what happened 12 months ago when he suffered a late departure from a similarly strong position.

History did not repeat itself and Baku's sequence of producing a different winner each year since the inaugural race, staged as the European Grand Prix in 2016, continued.