Few in Formula One have encapsulated the callowness of youth as memorably as Lance Stroll. Not content with earning his place at this level thanks to his fashion mogul father’s billions, or dismissing any objective critics of his driving as “haters”, the 18-year-old Canadian tried to excuse his crash at Casino Square on Thursday by saying that he had made the same mistake on his PlayStation.

In the less forgiving real world, alas, there was no opportunity to reboot and start again. Stroll is racing for Williams, a fabled F1 team that has produced seven world champion drivers, and yet he still seems to regard the privilege as akin to playing a computer game. In five races he has acquired not a single point and began his preparations for Sunday’s Monaco Grand Prix with another lapse in concentration that launched him straight into the steel barriers.

Referring to his struggles at two of Monaco’s trickiest corners, Portier and Rascasse, “It really p----- me off, because every time I play the PlayStation game, it’s always those corners that I can’t get right, and in reality it’s still those two corners.”

Time is fast running out for Stroll, who secured his ticket to the big time mainly on the strength of dad Lawrence’s fortune, made courtesy of a huge investment in clothing giant Tommy Hilfiger. But with five failures in races, including three retirements, he has done nothing to justify the extraordinary faith shown in one so young.