At Silverstone this week, during the build-up to the British Grand Prix, the paddock may have been preoccupied with the Ferrari-McLaren secrets scandal, but the paying punters were talking about the new sensation who races in qualifying today, before his first appearance in a grand prix on home soil tomorrow.

Lewis Hamilton, the young man who has gone from unknown to icon in four months, has made a bigger impact in Formula One quicker than anyone before him. So rapid has been his rise that millions who never cared for motor racing are avidly following his progress and they will turn up in their thousands this weekend to watch him race.

No wonder everyone is talking about “The Hamilton Effect”. Eight podium finishes in eight races, two grand-prix wins to his name and an improbable 14-point lead in the drivers’ championship goes some way to explaining the phenomenon, but the young McLaren Mercedes driver has touched people with his skill in the car and with his humility out of it.

We saw an example of that yesterday as he strode purposefully out of the McLaren garage after the first session of Friday practice towards the team’s gleaming new motorhome in the paddock at Silverstone. As he was climbing the steps of the mirrored-glass edifice, Hamilton noticed a young boy in a wheelchair waiting for him.

He was almost lost in the crush of photographers who now routinely surround him, but the young driver stopped, crouched down to talk to the boy, signed his cap and that of his brother and posed for a photograph.

The Hamilton Effect is with you wherever you go in these great days for British motor racing. Just ask Richard Phillips, the managing director of Silverstone, who has seen ticket sales go through the roof, with the circuit expected to host 255,000 people over three days, 65,000 more than last year.

“He’s broadened the appeal, he looks good, he’s a nice young man, he talks well and he drives exceedingly well,” Phillips said.

The impact is evident, too, in television audience figures for Formula One, which have increased dramatically, according to analysis by Deloitte, the consultant. The company said that the UK figures for Formula One averaged 4.4 million in 2000 and had fallen to 2.6 million by last year.

But Hamilton drew in 7.7 million for the United States Grand Prix in Indianapolis last month, when he scored his second victory, underlining the impact, as the company put it, that a “local hero” can have on a sport.

At the track there were thousands of new Hamilton fans enjoying a first glimpse of their new hero, distinctive in his smokey yellow helmet as he ripped round the circuit in a gusty wind at the wheel of his McLaren MP4-22. Some were staying in the newly named “Hamilton Fields” campsite in the soggy farmland nearby and you could pick anyone you liked to hear about the way Hamilton has touched their lives.

Julian Meek, a teacher, aged 39 from Plymouth, was typical of the new faithful, a man who has seen the effect Hamilton has had on his students at Devonport High School. “He’s a breath of fresh air,” he said. “He’s a young guy who has come in and there are so many people who have suddenly got interested in F1 because of Lewis Hamilton.”

Martin Whitmarsh, the McLaren chief executive, is observing the same from the inside out. “The Lewis Hamilton Effect is his youth, his freshness, his newness, his enthusiasm and the way he has developed so quickly,” Whitmarsh said. “That is allowing perhaps audiences that have not found all F1 stars to be enthralling in the past, to be interested.

“He is a natural in front of the camera, he has such a comfortable manner and an attractive manner in the way he deals with his fans, with the media, and with the general public.”

Hamilton’s mixed-race background – he is the first driver of Afro-Caribbean descent in Formula One – has given him a reach that others, such as Jenson Button or David Coulthard, could not have had. The Times received an e-mail recently from a black woman who works in the media who is not only a convert to Formula One but admits that she has been swept away by Hamilton, a young black man dominating a sport she regards as the preserve of whites.

“Please, God, Hamilton continues his wonderful start,” she wrote. “My black friends and I are all frantically ringing around to get tickets for Silverstone now. None of us have ever been and it’s a bit of an expensive game for us to follow, so we may have to make do with TV. But please understand that, across the UK, black Britons also have a new hero. He makes us cry with pride. He makes us proud to be black-British.”

Another woman who saw the impact that Hamilton can make is Julia Bourn, whose two sons waited in the rain for an hour at the recent Goodwood Festival of Speed in West Sussex, hoping to speak to Hamilton after he had driven his race car up the hill climb. “We listened to the interview Lewis gave with Steve Rider [of ITV] and then Lewis signed their McLaren caps and chatted to them,” she wrote in an e-mail. “I simply have the happiest boys imaginable.

“It’s a moment they will remember and they now have a cap they will treasure. So a big thanks to Lewis and we will be on the edge of our seats at Silverstone, cheering him on.”

A mecca for drivers or simply the pits?

— Ten best things about Silverstone

1 It is a Formula One track and it is in Britain.

2 It is a classic racer’s circuit – the first five corners are among the best in Formula One.

3 Its history: Silverstone was venue for the first World Championship race, on May 13, 1950, won by Giuseppe “Nino” Farina in an Alfa Romeo.

4 The smell of bacon butties in the mornings in the campsites around the circuit. One such site has been renamed “Hamilton field”.

5 Its atmosphere. You can’t beat a full house at Silverstone, especially when a British driver is on song.

6 Knowledge. Just as in Italy – think Monza or Imola – these people know their racing (unlike in some other parts of the world).

7 Copse, one of the fastest corners in racing. The drivers take this at 185mph and it is waiting for them right after the start. Then it is Maggots and Becketts – twitchy, fast, dangerous.

8 Access to the track by car is much better than it used to be.

9 It is the venue for Lewis Hamilton’s home grand prix.

10 It is 30 miles from Milton Keynes.

— Ten worst things about Silverstone

1 Bernie Ecclestone does not like it.

2 Its owner, the British Racing Drivers’ Club (BRDC). A case of too many chiefs and not enough indians, or the other way round.

3 Ecclestone is fed up with the BRDC and says that he cannot deal with it.

4 Dilapidated feel, no roofs on the grandstands, muddy campsites.

5 Ecclestone says that it is a “third-rate” circuit.

6 The smell of bacon butties in the morning and cheap burgers all day.

7 Ecclestone thinks that the access is bad, the pits are “the pits”, the media facilities are poor and the public deserve better.

8 It is near Milton Keynes.

9 Ecclestone wants to look elsewhere and most of the places he is looking at are a long, long way away.

10 Traffic jams.