Hadjar’s performance was the stand-out in qualifying, 0.292secs ahead of team-mate Liam Lawson in eighth and ahead of both Mercedes and both Ferraris.

It was all the more eye-opening as he had missed much of Friday practice with a recurring engine problem.

The 20-year-old Frenchman said: “I feel great. Amazing qualifying. Honestly, yesterday was a complete disaster for me. So really unexpected.

“This morning I had a really good feeling but we knew it would be very hard to reach Q3 and actually both of us did. He was really pushing me hard and I put it all on the line on that final lap and it was a great lap so I’m happy.”

Completing the top 10 behind Lawson were the Williams of Carlos Sainz and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, representing the two teams in fifth and sixth at the head of a tight battle for fifth place in the constructors’ championship.

The promise Alonso showed in practice on Friday, when he split the McLarens, faded, as it was always likely to. But he would have been seventh ahead of Hamilton had he managed to repeat the fastest lap he managed in the second session.

The track changed and got slower at the end of the session, and Alonso had run used tyres on his first run in Q3, like everyone bar the McLarens and Verstappen.

He said: “When you run last min Q3, 10th is not the best starting position but it is what we deserved today. Ninth is 0.15secs in front of us so it is not even close. We have a different tyre selection from some other teams and we hope it pays off.”

The Spaniard’s team-mate Lance Stroll crashed on his very first lap of qualifying after putting his right-hand wheels on to the grass approaching the final corner and starts last.