Rain dance Briton is Senna of his generation

With all of his brilliance in the wet and his ability to construct the perfect lap when he needs it most, Lewis Hamilton is proving to a younger Formula One audience that he is the Ayrton Senna of this generation.

It is in tough conditions such as these that the class acts really deliver.

Hamilton, more than any other driver in the field, understands how and where to find the grip when it pours. He has looked so relaxed here – he was even on his PlayStation in the motorhome during the rain delay – and the margin by which he took pole, over 1.1sec, must be fairly demoralising for his rivals, not least his Mercedes team-mate, Valtteri Bottas.

In changing weather, Hamilton (right) adapts brilliantly.

With every lap you have confidence that he will find an extra edge. This is his sixth pole at Monza, a track that clearly plays to his strengths. But even though 79 per cent of the circuit is taken at full throttle, achieving the perfect lap is by no means straightforward. Both Curva Grande and Ascari are seriously high-G corners, and there is a real art to finding the path of least resistance. Hamilton, just as Senna did in his prime, always appears to know exactly where it is. For all that the Englishman was the star once again, there is excitement in the fact that Lance Stroll and Esteban Ocon qualified so strongly. Stroll, in particular, drew so much doubt earlier in the season about whether he should even be in the sport.

He came into the Williams team at just 18 and had an extremely difficult first few races, but he has since shown – first in Baku and now in Italy – the type of qualities that made him a European Formula Three champion. A first front-row appearance is a fantastic achievement.

That said, the 2½ hours that everybody had to wait around for qualifying to resume was not the finest advert for Formula One. Naturally, health and safety is important, with so much standing water to clear from the track, but this was one occasion when the caution seemed to go too far.

Ironically, the session finished in wetter conditions than when there were no cars on the track. There should be a lesson there somewhere.