The heat is on for boy wonder: Lewis Hamilton in pole position

The Indiana sun was relentless yesterday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. As the ambient heat nudged 34C, the track temperature soaring to a blistering 54C. And yet it was still not hot enough to raise a sweat in Lewis Hamilton. In and out of the cockpit he took everything in his stride on his first visit while nabbing pole position ahead of team-mate Fernando Alonso for the second week running.

Not even the need to change his engine after practice on Friday caused him concern. "We were going to do that anyway. It was just the intended replacement had some problem, so we had to use another," he explained.

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While a team member rushed from the McLaren garage just before qualifying yesterday, looking harassed and speaking of "everything going to hell in there" as last-minute changes were made to his car, Hamilton sat quietly, working with his engineers, maintaining an even strain. Such things are all a part of the deal in a race driver's life, but you could not fail to be impressed by the cool manner in which he has accepted them at this level, and not let them affect him.

Less than an hour later he stepped into that gutted car, now reassembled, and blew out his experienced team-mate with insouciant ease. The fans, 80,000 of them, raised a throaty roar of cheers. Hereabouts, Hamilton is now The Man.

US racing, it seems, has found a new hero. Not surprisingly, the comparisons with Tiger Woods have flown thick and fast in the golfer's home country. Hamilton's graciousness came to the fore yet again when somebody asked him if he could do for Formula One what Woods has done for golf. He's heard the question a thousand times, but there was none of the world-weariness of some other drivers in his response. "I don't know what to say to that, to be honest," he said, choosing his words carefully, clearly anxious not to cause anyone offence. "But I'm not Tiger Woods ­ I'm Lewis Hamilton."

The main pressure on him will come from the expectations of all those watching in Indianapolis, who already believe this 22-year-old from Hertfordshire can be one of the greatest drivers who ever lived. He has won only one Formula One race. But in the first six starts of his F1 career, Lewis Hamilton has never finished further back than third place.

The first black driver in F1 has smashed prejudices by making the most extraordinary debut in the history of the sport. "Lewis Hamilton is a phenomenon," said the veteran motor-racing commentator Murray Walker yesterday, "unlike anything we have ever seen before."

Hamilton's Spanish McLaren team-mate, Alonso, has claimed that the Surrey-based team was giving its new star "all the support and help". Hamilton, who is usually eloquent in interviews, described those complaints as "strange".

When they start tonight his father, Anthony, who worked three jobs to buy the boy a go-kart, will be watching from the paddock as he always does. Lewis's 15-year-old half-brother, Nicholas, who has cerebral palsy, will be gripped by his efforts to master a track they have raced together on the PlayStation. And back in Britain a huge audience is expected to watch the race, thanks to the interest in Hamilton that has suddenly soared.

The British Grand Prix in July all but sold out after the victory in Canada, and organisers expect the kind of flag-waving hysteria that greeted the victories of Nigel Mansell a generation ago. This time, though, the Union flags will flutter for a young man of mixed white and Afro-Caribbean parentage.

"All I keep thinking when I see him racing is: he's from Stevenage," said Kieron Rablah, who is also from the town just north of London. " He's a black kid from Stevenage. If you come from Stevenage, Formula One might as well be polo."

The Indianapolis sponsors are excited that someone with his looks, background, eloquence and exciting, risky racing style could shake Americans out of their antipathy towards F1. Do that, and win the World Championship, and he could, says Nigel Currie of the sports marketing agency Brand Rapport, earn $1bn and "become of the most recognised people on the planet ­ and one of the most marketable".

Sir Jackie Stewart, the triple world champion, says: "I believe Lewis will create the benchmark for a whole generation of drivers." He is already turning television viewers back on to motor racing. Hamilton, whose trademark move is to nip daringly round the outside of his rivals in the opening seconds of a race, raised viewing figures for the Malaysian GP by 27 per cent on last year, while 7.7 million people watched his victory in Montreal ­ more than twice the average for a Formula One race.

The rush for tickets for the British race at Silverstone was "amazing", said the course managing director, Richard Phillips. "We haven't seen this level of interest since Mansell-mania." Mansell was a boring monotone West Midlander with a moustache and little to say, and he still won Sports Personality of Year. No wonder the sponsors are besieging the new star's father-manager Anthony, who is taking his time choosing an agent.

"My dad has been the main driving force behind me getting to where I am, " says Hamilton. "The way I am now is all because of him. Some people may say he's overprotective, but he was making sure that I had a better life than he had."

Anthony Hamilton had a tough childhood in west London as the son of a London Underground worker who had moved to Britain from Grenada in the 1950s. By the time his own boy was born in January 1985, he was living in Hatfield in Hertfordshire and married to Carmen, who is white. They named the boy after Carl Lewis, the American athlete who had won four gold medals at the previous summer's Olympics.

Two years later, Carmen and Anthony divorced. Both have since remarried. "I've got two separate families," says Lewis, "but we work closely together and I spend a lot of time with my mum."

At the age of six he was given a remote-control car for his birthday. Soon he declared it wasn't fast enough, so they got him a petrol version which he raced in competitions. But it was the following year, when he tried a go-kart on holiday in Spain, that Lewis Hamilton found his vocation.

"I just seemed to have the technique, working the throttle and the brake," he says. "Karts are where you learn your race craft." He learned fast, lapping his dad the first time out, then started beating other boys and girls in races. By miles. His hand-eye co-ordination and feel for a track were astonishing, say those who saw him move rapidly through the ranks of junior competitions.

Anthony, who was prepared to back his son's talent as far as it would go, took redundancy from British Rail in order to be able to drive Lewis to practice and races all over the country. At the same time, he found an outlet for a self-taught talent of his own, by starting an IT consultancy.

"If I hadn't been born, he would probably have stayed at British Rail, so we've had a real effect on each other's lives," says Lewis. The youthful-looking father is sometimes mistaken for his son. He was also responsible for Lewis meeting Ron Dennis, the head of the McLaren racing team, at an awards ceremony in London. Hamilton was there as the youngest karting champion in Britain, aged 10, and his father urged the boy to introduce himself to Dennis. He did, and said: "I'm going to race for you one day."

Dennis told him to call in nine years' time. But it didn't take that long. Just three years later, after yet more karting victories, Lewis was invited to join a new training programme started by McLaren and Mercedes. Dennis has called him his My Fair Lady experiment.

Training for driving made him super-fit for football. Hamilton played centre-midfield for John Henry Newman School in Stevenage, where a team-mate had similar dreams of becoming a professional athlete. "He wasn't too bad, but I was the better player," says Ashley Young, who had already signed to Watford FC's youth academy. "We both wanted to do well at the highest level."

Young signed for Aston Villa in January for £9.75m. He is also a member of the England Under-21 team competing in the European Championships in Holland this week. "I've seen that he's doing well and I'm happy for him," said Young, but he said it was difficult to be close friends as children as Hamilton was often away driving. "He would be away at weekends, so you couldn't really socialise out of school."

Somehow Hamilton also found the time to take up karate, to defend himself against bullying in the playground. He has never said why he was bullied, but he was a mixed-race child in an overwhelmingly white town. He became an intermediate black belt. He also played the guitar, which he strummed for his then girlfriend, Rachel Butterfield.

Hamilton still plays the guitar to ease his nerves, often in his McLaren trailer, but his favourites are now Beyoncé and rap star 2Pac. He has a different girlfriend, too. Jodia Ma met the young driver four years ago while they were both studying at the Cambridge College of Arts and Science. She has recently moved back to her birthplace of Hong Kong but they remain together, and after victory in Canada he gave her a diamond bracelet worth £10,000.

Not that journalists can ask about her. A year ago Hamilton would have chatted happily. Now a member of the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes public relations team sweeps in to demand that his private life be left private.

In December he turned up at the Springfield youth club in Hackney, east London, to give out prizes. Sir Jackie Stewart is the president, but most of the members are black. Drugs and violence are common on the surrounding streets, but the club offers young teenagers a glimpse of a different kind of life.

"It shows people something. It shows them black people can do it," said Adrian Murdock-Claridge, 13. Vibert Murdock, a vice-chairman of the club, said: "Lewis is an inspiration for me, personally."

Despite such acts, questions about race are also forbidden by McLaren. His appeal must remain as wide as possible, it seems. His personal website, once an enthusiastic and candid chronicle of his rise, now refers browsers to anodyne team pages.

And yet... Hamilton is not yet arrogant and out of touch like some of his rivals. After coming second in the Monaco Grand Prix, he stepped off the podium and handed his trophy to his brother Nicholas, who he describes as his "best friend and inspiration" ­ saying: "He's always positive. He never complains about what he has. He just keeps his chin up. That is a strong message."

Hamilton moved to Surrey earlier this year to be near the futuristic McLaren Technology Centre. But this season, moving from track to track, he has usually travelled with members of his family, including Nicholas and his PlayStation.

"I never let him win," he says of his little brother. "He goes, 'I'm only a second slower, but I can't beat you.' I say, 'Well Nick, I am an F1 driver.'"

One of the courses they race is Indianapolis. Tonight, for the first time, Lewis will race it for real. His rival will be a Spanish champion, and the prize ­ ultimately ­ will be the world.