The early years of the record are distorted by the anomalous presence of the Indianapolis 500 on the world championship calendar. The average lap speed record has only been broken sporadically in the 70-year history of the world championship, with Hamilton’s new record of 264.362km/h the fourth time it has been broken in the 21st century. But in the speed trap at Monza on Saturday Raikkonen clocked 354.5km/h.

I remember achieving 200mph (321km/h) on the straight for the first time while testing in Monza in 1991, it was a big day and for us another landmark.

While a big part of the time gain over the years is in the corners, as you can tell from the fact that this lap is quicker than anyone ever went at Monza without the chicanes, straight top speeds are still very high. It will be interesting to see what the second Bahrain race on the Outer circuit throws up in terms of average speed, but if the chaos of trying to get tyre pressures down and into position for a tow that we saw at Monza is anything to go by, we can look forward to the spectacle there. The average speed for any circuit is all down to its design and how many times you have to slow down. The cars simply accelerate too fast, so recovery from a small mistake is more or less instant. The stopping power and acceleration is mind-blowing, but the problem is that it is a negative for the racing. When you consider that Hamilton wasn’t the fastest car on the straights at Monza and was ninth in the main speed trap, 13.1km/h off Alfa Romeo driver Raikkonen’s top speed, it shows these current cars with 1000bhp and mega grip levels are basically projectiles.

Lewis Hamilton broke Formula 1’s lap speed record with his 264.362km/h lap in qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix, surpassing Kimi Raikkonen’s two-year old record, and this tells us a lot about today’s cars.

F1 average speed