KEY POINTS:
Lewis Hamilton, the 22-year-old English rookie, has thwarted writers - who have given up trying to figure out when a driver last made such impressive debut in Formula One.
Because the answer is straightforward: nobody.
Back in 1961, Italian novice Giancarlo Baghetti won his first three Formula One races in a Ferrari - two non-championship encounters in Syracuse and Naples against meagre opposition, and then the French Grand Prix after a slipstreaming battle with the great Dan Gurney after the three works Ferraris had retired. But Baghetti had a significant car advantage over his opposition and thereafter scored only a fourth and a fifth in a career that petered out in 1967.
There is absolutely no danger of Hamilton's career nosediving like that.
Far from it; he is just beginning to make his mark, and has thus far started out more impressively than all-time greats such as Jimmy Clark, Jackie Stewart, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna or Michael Schumacher.
He may even win the Bahrain GP tonight, given his continuing form in practice.
After he had beaten his teammate Fernando Alonso's time to go third fastest behind the rampant Ferraris in the morning, it took all of Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari firepower to dislodge him from fastest time in the afternoon.
The Finn did so by a scant 0.013s, as BMW-Sauber's Polish driver Robert Kubica (who rates Hamilton the best driver he has ever raced against) pushed up to third ahead of Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari and the McLaren team leader, Alonso.
Hamilton knows Ferrari retain the edge, despite appearances last week in Malaysia. He also knows that McLaren are inching closer to parity and he towards that first win.
"In Malaysia we looked like we had completely closed the gap. I don't think that was the case. We got them at the first corner. If we hadn't done that they would have been gone, off into the distance and won the race," he said.
"Our overall one-lap pace is sweet. I'm not worried about that.
"We are quicker, but we'll have to wait and see if we are quick enough."
- THE INDEPENDENT
