Lewis Hamilton dedicated his first Formula One victory to his father, Anthony, last night as the young Briton celebrated an immaculate performance in a dramatic Canadian Grand Prix, which included an horrific crash for the Polish driver, Robert Kubica.

Starting from pole position for the first time, Hamilton drove what Ron Dennis, his team principal at McLaren Mer-cedes, described as an “impeccable” race on a day when the safety car was deployed four times and Kubica was among ten drivers out of 22 starters who did not finish.

As crowds have become accustomed to seeing in these early races of Hamilton’s record-breaking career, the 22-year-old – who leads the drivers’ championship by eight points from Fernando Alonso, his teammate – drove with speed and precision, barely putting a wheel out of place in 70 wreckage-strewn laps.

Speaking after stepping on to the top step of the podium for the first of what is likely to be many times, an emotional Hamilton said: “I have to dedicate this one to my dad because without him this all wouldn’t be possible.” The rising star also made a point of expressing his concern for Kubica, but could not hide his elation at a victory he had been expecting for some time.

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“It’s a fantastic day,” he said. “This is history – to come here for my first time in Canada and win. It’s been a fantastic season already. I’ve had six podiums and I’ve been waiting for quite some time for this win. It was just a matter of when and where. The team gave me the best car. I had no problems during the race at all. The safety cars made it a bit boring at some points, but as soon as we got going it was exciting again.”

By the final laps, with Alonso a distant seventh after a calamitous afternoon for the world champion, who went off four times, Hamilton was able to turn the revs down on his McLaren MP4-22 and savour the moment before a full house in the sunshine.

“During the last laps I was just counting them down,” he said. “I am the type of guy who usually pushes right to the end, but it’s a tricky circuit and you can go on the marbles [broken rubber] and you are in the wall, so I quietened down towards the end and just enjoyed it.”

The sages in the paddock are finding it difficult to find new ways of describing Hamilton’s extraordinary debut season. “This was the best result ever, for him and for Formula One,” Niki Lauda, the former world champion, told The Times.“I’ve never seen a guy driving such a perfect way. If he continues like this he will be champion. We all expected him, with no experience, to make mistakes under pressure, but he doesn’t do any mistakes.”

Sir Frank Williams, who saw his own driver, Alex Wurz, finish a distant third, said: “He is absolutely a brilliant driver. You could almost describe him as a phenomenon given that he is achieving so much with no Formula One experience. He is very, very remarkable.”