There are plenty of people in the brave new world that is Stevenage who are not interested in Formula One. But the ones who are love Lewis Hamilton and believe fervently he will become world champion by the end of the Brazilian Grand Prix on Sunday.

Hamilton, it is safe to say, is the most exciting thing that has happened to Stevenage since it was developed in the 1950s. The new town in the Hertfordshire countryside and the old village next door on which it is based, can count among its sometime residents Denholm Elliott, the actor, Ian Poulter, the golfer, and Ashley Young, the Aston Villa and former Watford footballer, who was a secondary-school contemporary of Hamilton.

Hamilton, though, is out on his own in putting Stevenage on the map, a place where history started on the board of the local planning office just 60 years ago and which, these days, is looking a little careworn. Uniform, slab-sided, concrete-made, Stevenage is East German inelegant and functional; a matrix of shopping centres and council estates, connected by spacious tree-lined avenues and parks. Like a giant architect's drawing, it sits in rolling hills to the north of London in easy commuting distance for its inhabitants, one of whom, Hamilton's father Anthony, chose it for his home 25 years ago.

After two years following Hamilton around the globe in the “glamorous world” of Formula One, when you get to the grey downtown reality of Stevenage you cannot help thinking, “So this is where Lewis grew up”; this is where he went shopping with Carmen, his mother, Linda, his stepmother; this is where he dreamt of being a Formula One driver when his dreams were just that and his prospects of achieving them, as a mixed-race kid from a council house on the town's Shephall estate, were of the billion-to-one variety.

At Costa Coffee, in the heart of Britain's first pedestrianised town centre where the recession has arrived early and the evidence of youth unemployment and near-record levels of teenage pregnancy is all around, Lin Greenslade is the model of efficiency, preparing a cappuccino and croissant. “Oh yes, people are aware of him,” she says, sprinkling chocolate powder on the beverage. “When he had a book-signing at Waterstone's, there were queues round the block. And I believe he has his own designated parking space at Asda, but I don't suppose he'll ever use it - bless his little cotton socks.”

Greenslade is happy to talk about Hamilton, but, like many other townsfolk, she is fed up with him being criticised. “As long as it's nice,” she says, “we don't want anyone slagging off our Lewis. People here love the fact that somebody as famous as he is, is from the back of beyond because, unfortunately, Stevenage does have a reputation as a bit of a hole. So it's great to have someone as classy as he is representing us.”

Outside in the precinct where the concrete glistens after an early-morning downpour, John Berry, 59, who has been cleaning the streets of Hamilton's home town for years and loves a job that pays a tiny fraction of the millions that the McLaren star is earning, is another admirer. Pausing by his cart with his picker-upper in hand, he predicts great things for Sunday, when Hamilton, who leads Felipe Massa, of Ferrari, by seven points and must finish fifth if the Brazilian wins, will try to close out the championship for the second year in a row.

“He's doing a good job for Stevenage and he's a good driver as well,” Berry says. “Hamilton will win. I think he's got more confidence in the car and himself - he'll go full power for it this year, like [Michael] Schumacher. Having him in Formula One is good for the town - or what's left of it. Look at the state of it, empty shops, broken windows - it needs more colour.”

At the jewellers inside the Westgate Shopping Centre, Tara Criddle poses with a model of Hamilton's car from the window display. “I like him - I just fancy him, that's all,” she says, giggling self-consciously. Criddle, 22, watches every race with her grandfather and she has heard that Hamilton Sr, who has moved out of Stevenage to a big house in the leafy village of nearby Tewin, occasionally comes to the shop where she has started work recently. Next time he comes, she wants a picture with him.

“We had Jason [sic] Button, but Lewis is like a breath of fresh air and every time he wins I am really pleased and proud of him. I'm pleased that his dad is his coach,” she says. Criddle is keeping her fingers crossed for Sunday, especially after last year when Hamilton contrived to lose a championship he had led by 17 points with two races left. “It could be his year but anything can happen - no, he'll be fine, he'll be fine - I've got my faith in him,” she says.

At Asda, Hamilton's parking space is occupied by a clean and tidy blue-green Vauxhall Vectra, with a cushion on the passenger seat, the owners of which are engaged in a very time-consuming shopping experience. Under the car, you can see it says “reserved” in big red letters and there is a yellow stencilled depiction of a Formula One car - just four wheels and an engine.

The supermarket dedicated the space to Hamilton last year as a tribute to his success, but the stunt seems to have backfired with Hamilton now resident in Geneva for tax reasons and the locals seemingly aware that he never shopped there anyway. As if to emphasise the company's unease, a security official emerges from the store to say that the space cannot be photographed without permission from the head office in Leeds and requests that we move on.

Two miles from the shopping centre, you can see the appeal of Stevenage in the quiet, neat, tree-lined streets on the Shephall estate where Hamilton grew up. The house in Peartree Way, where the youngster started racing model cars and go-karts, has changed hands several times since the Hamiltons left, but there are one or two neighbours who remember the family, among them Peter Fuller. A recently retired pharmaceutical engineer with GlaxoSmithKline, a big local employer, he is as impressed with Hamilton's father as he is with the racing driver.

“I think what he has done is absolutely incredible,” he says of Hamilton Sr. “Bringing up children is the hardest thing in the world. My young son, he gave me hell but he's come out at the top and I'm pleased as punch for him and I think Tony did the same with Lewis. He guided him and they stayed very close. If he hadn't stayed close, he wouldn't be there now.”

Should Hamilton join the role of honour of British world champions, he will have reached Formula One glory from a more modest upbringing than the norm. Of the past four, two were public schoolboys (Damon Hill and James Hunt) while Nigel Mansell and Sir Jackie Stewart could each claim more comfortable backgrounds than Hamilton. Should all go well in the years ahead, however, the boy from Stevenage could yet surpass them all.