Damon Hill, the last British driver to stand on top of the Formula One castle, in 1996, is pleased with himself. Shortly before this season got under way, he predicted that Lewis Hamilton would quickly prosper in Formula One and the young McLaren Mercedes driver’s two opening races have proved him right.

Hill believes that Hamilton’s third place at the Australian Grand Prix last month and his thrilling rearguard action against Kimi Raikkonen to finish second behind Fernando Alonso, his McLaren teammate, in Malaysia last weekend have created a perfect cushion for him if things go awry in subsequent races.

“He’s started off in a dream way,” Hill said yesterday. “Short of winning, he’s shown he is admirably capable of running at the sharp end with no real problem. He’s not limping into Formula One, he’s come in and made people sit up and take notice.

“What he’s done so far is an insurance policy because there are going to be hiccups between now and the end of the season. There is going to be the odd mistake, but people will forgive him that because of what he’s done so far.”

Hill was particularly impressed by the way Hamilton coped with the punishing conditions in Malaysia, where he raced in extreme heat and humidity but drove on the limit. The former world champion has no doubts that Hamilton is everything that he is cracked up to be.

“I think it’s real — I think Lewis is probably the closest we’ve got to a guy who can dominate and be at the top for a long time,” Hill said. All the factors seem to be conspiring in Hamilton’s favour, including the retirement of Michael Schumacher, which has made space for new stars to emerge.

The next step for the 22-year-old Briton is a race win, Hill says. “If you watch F1 enough, or any sport, you start to read the signs,” he said. “Because he’s young, because he’s in a top team, because McLaren are also competitive now, all these things point towards Lewis being able to take that next step forward, which will be to win a race.

“Somewhere between now and the end of the season, that’s going to happen and then he’ll grow in stature and start to see himself differently, and we’ll all start to see him as a championship contender.”

Whereas some had predicted that Hamilton would struggle to produce in Formula One the sort of wheel-to-wheel combat that was his hallmark in junior formulas, Hill was not surprised to see the way he fought off Felipe Massa, of Ferrari, in the opening laps in Sepang on Sunday.

“This guy has been on four wheels since he was five years old,” Hill said. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s a GP2 car, a go-kart or a flippin’ Morris 1000 — it’s as if it’s part of his body. An F1 car is just a bit bigger and a bit faster and he’s not intimidated, is he?”

Just as Hamilton’s father, Anthony, likes to emphasise, Hill says that Hamilton’s long apprenticeship in go-kart racing has equipped him to deal with the pressures on the track in Formula One. “On the way up, you have to fight tooth and nail against allcomers,” Hill said. “Lewis is not putting his rivals in F1 on pedestals. They are not gods, they are just fellow competitors to him and other guys he wants to beat.”

Occupying much of Hill’s time is his role as president of the British Racing Drivers’ Club, the owner of Silverstone, which will stage the British Grand Prix on July 8. Hill is hoping that the public will turn out in force to support Hamilton and the three other British drivers on the grid this year, Jenson Button, David Coulthard and Anthony Davidson.

Hill is also hoping that Hamilton’s emergence might help the Government to appreciate the importance of ensuring that Silverstone, which is in need of significant investment, survives on the Formula One calendar in the face of competition from new circuits abroad, which are invariably backed by public money.

“To bang the drum a bit, you have to say in this country we do bloody well at this sport,” Hill said. “We are consistently able to produce front-running grand-prix drivers and have done throughout the history of the sport. It is a little frustrating that we struggle to convince the powers that be that, with a little bit of money — in comparison to what some other sports get — we can produce a facility at Silverstone which would be a monument to our success in this area.”

Demon Damon

— Damon Hill won 22 grands prix in 115 races. He won the World Championship in 1996, driving for Williams Renault.

— He was the eighth British driver to win a Formula One world drivers’ title and is equal fourth, alongside Mika Hakkinen and Ayrton Senna, in the list for most grands-prix wins in one season, with eight in his title-winning season.

— His 22 victories place him ninth in the all-time winners’ list.