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It was billed as the last chance saloon for Jeremy Hunt. And so it proved.

The foreign secretary and underdog in the Tory leadership race approached the ITV debate with rival Boris Johnson as if it was his final opportunity to make a difference.

But it's probably already too late. It's estimated that 60% of the 180,000 Conservative Party members who make up the electorate in this contest have already voted.

So Mr Hunt wasted no time in going on the attack.

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"If you don't get us out [of the EU] by 31 October, will you resign?," he challenged his rival in the opening minutes.

And when Mr Johnson ducked the question, he added: "It's not do or die, is it? It's Boris in Number 10 that matters."

Throughout the programme it was obvious who was the frontrunner and who was the challenger.

It was Mr Hunt on the attack, firing questions, and Mr Johnson trying not to get rattled; as well as repeatedly dodging the questions put to him by a clearly pumped-up opponent.

Mr Johnson was evasive on Washington ambassador Sir Kim Darroch's future, on Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Heathrow expansion, on which he once said he would lie down in front of the bulldozers.

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There have been a dozen or so hustings in this contest so far, with Mr Johnson and Mr Hunt taking questions separately from party members, and an interview with Mr Hunt by Kay Burley on Sky News after Mr Johnson declined to turn up.

But this was the first head-to-head, with the two men standing just a few feet apart, eyeball to eyeball.

And from the beginning it was electric, edgy and unpredictable. It was also, at times, niggly, ill-tempered, noisy and feisty.

This made Prime Minister's Questions sound tame and flat.

And it was clear why frontrunner Mr Johnson wanted to keep these TV debates to a minimum.

"Bottler Boris" had been Mr Hunt's charge earlier in the campaign.

With the pair of them shouting at each other, time after time ITV's referee, Julie Etchingham, had to tell them: "Stop talking over each other!"

They took no notice, of course.

The first half of the hour-long programme was nearly all Brexit.

Mr Johnson had a good quip when Julie Etchingham asked the pair to put their hands up if they were confident Brexit would be delivered by 31 October.

Both of them did and the former foreign secretary told his successor: "That's the spirit, Jeremy…" before adding: "You could have fooled me!"

It was one of the few jokes from the unusually restrained and disciplined Mr Johnson.

But while Mr Hunt was tenacious in his questioning and his challenges, and even though Mr Johnson was determined to avoid mistakes or fall into any traps, the former London mayor exuded confidence throughout most of the debate.

At one point, Mr Johnson said: "I'm not prime minister… at the moment."

And on the Washington ambassador's future, he said: "I and I alone will decide who is our ambassador."

He also hinted at a post-Brexit election in his opening remarks, when he said that after the UK left the EU "we will make our case to the people again".

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At the end of the programme, Mr Johnson and his team will be relieved that there were no gaffes or blunders.

Mr Hunt will be pleased with his aggressive performance. But, in truth, he didn't land any knockout blows.

Those Tory party members who have already voted will no doubt be reassured that they have voted for the right man.

Mr Johnson did enough to cheer them up. He's obviously going to win and probably by a big margin.

But what will floating voters have made of it?

As many of us pundits have already remarked in this contest, since the 2016 referendum Mr Johnson has moved from a Heineken candidate to Marmite.

Because of Brexit, he's now a bitterly divisive figure and many non-Tory voters may well have found him a turn-off and preferred the more consensual Mr Hunt, as the current foreign secretary claimed during the debate.

Mr Johnson's verdict on this debate will probably be "job done".

But on this evidence the big job will come once he has become Tory leader and prime minister.

Winning the backing of the overwhelmingly pro-Brexit Tory members has proved to be relatively easy for Mr Johnson.

On this showing, winning over the electorate as a whole will be much harder.