Schoolchildren might well be aghast but it transpires Lewis Hamilton ascribed his pole position for the Tuscan Grand Prix down to – whisper it – a hard night of homework. F1 has never raced here before and Hamilton wrote his name into the history books with an imperious lap in the hills of Scarperia. He went quickest on the first hot laps in Q3 with a time of 1min 15.144sec, which was five-hundredths up on Bottas and made the difference. When they went out again Hamilton pushed but did not improve his time, while yellow flags in the first sector where Esteban Ocon had gone off meant Bottas had to back off his final quick lap. “You are definitely not ending the lap with a low heart rate. The drivers were all gushing in their praise but the race may be a different affair.

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