6/53 Nico Hulkenberg is first in the pits, having been in the wars at the start.

5/53 Russell is told to push on by the Merc team. The stewards are ok with this, according to the garage.

4/53 That move by Piastri ended up doing both Russell and Norris. Team orders? Not a bit of it. Piastri, Leclerc, Norris, Sainz – McLaren and Ferrari up top – like Gerhard Berger’s heyday.

3/53 Russell is back to seventh but will surely have to pit. What a start this has been. Perez wants Russell to go in, saying there is debris. Norris sets the fastest lap, chasing down his lost leadership.

2/53 Piastri sets off at breakneck pace, but Ferrari in Leclerc and Sainz look full of pace on the straight. Does Russell have wing damage?

Norris loses two places at on the first lap!

And away we go at Monza

Race control say the risk of rain is 40%. The drivers get ready for the parade lap, the engines humming, the noise doubtless ear-bleeding.

Oscar Piastri, under an umbrella, says that he and his teammates are expecting rainstorms. It looks baking, but the clouds are visible.

Max Verstappen says today will be “damage limitation”. On “pure pace every car in front of us is quicker.” He seems up for the fight, at least. But worried, too.

Regret to inform that Martin Brundle is doing Oasis puns in his pit walk. He clearly didn’t spend all day on Ticketmaster. Lando Norris is staying cool in the heat of Monza. Brundo catches up with Jean Alesi, and Gerhard Berger, who is joking that divorces have cost him all his money.

“McLaren looks bloody strong,” says Gerhard. We could do with more Gerhard. No characters in the game, these days. A Melburnian chap tells “Marty” that “we love you in Australia”. Jean Todt’s looking well after his meal last night with Brundo. Can Ferrari win? “Time will tell,” says Jean.

Louis Tomlinson is there; he didn’t get Oasis tickets, and is there with a famous Italian beer company. Bernie Ecclestone is there. “I think I’m alright,” says the former overload. “This place is still a classic….I’m still busy busy but I don’t know what I am doing.” George Russell has a vest on. It’s Carlos Sainz’s birthday and he is making his way to his Ferrari. And so to the Italian national anthem, with its stop-start intro followed by operatic triumphalism.

Another newcomer, and one who won’t have to wait his turn: “Franco Colapinto, the Argentine driver currently competing in F2 and drafted in only this week to replace Logan Sargeant at Williams, acquitted himself very well in his F1 debut to take 18th place. On Sunday, he will be the first Argentine since Gastón Mazzacane in 2001 to compete in F1 and the second, after Carlos Reutemann, to race for Williams.”

You have to feel sorry for Logan Sargeant.

And this would be a seismic move, a huge blow to Fizzy Drink team.

It’s been a week of big news on the F1 scene.

The young driver crashed out of his first competitive run in an F1 car, in practice at Monza after just five laps but the team principal Toto Wolff said he would rather have the problem of slowing down a fast driver than vice versa.

Preamble