If anybody submitted a script before the start of the season describing the first three races, they would have been laughed out of the door and declared certifiable.

The storyline would have run something like this: youngster makes F1 debut; finishes third in first race after passing two much more experienced drivers into first corner and leading twice world champion team-mate for majority of race; comes second in next race after again out-manoeuvring two competitors in the first sequence of corners (and forcing one of them into an amateurish mistake) and soaking up immense pressure lap after lap; finishes second in third race too after nail-biting battle that could have seen him win and in which he completely overshadows said team-mate; is joint championship leader after only three races.

Yet this is exactly the story of Lewis Hamilton’s first three Formula 1 races. To paraphrase Lord Byron: truth is sometimes stranger than fiction…

After Australia, Malaysia and Bahrain few doubt the 22-year-old Brit is on the verge of becoming F1’s new superstar — and in his own country he probably already is, thanks to the (not necessarily unjustifiably eulogising) British media.

Indeed, his progress has been simply astonishing. In Australia, against general expectation, he drove faultlessly; in Malaysia he proved he could soak up pressure from established winners, Ferrari’s Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen; and in Bahrain he showed he could attack too. Were it not for a tactical error by his McLaren team — by its own admission Hamilton’s tyres were under-inflated and he was fuelled too heavily in the middle stint — he could have won the Sakhir race.

This would have been a bigger achievement than those of some greats in the World Championship era like Jacques Villeneuve and Emerson Fittipaldi (victory in their fourth races), Clay Regazzoni (fifth race), Jackie Stewart (eighth), Mario Andretti (10th), Juan Pablo Montoya (15th), Ayrton Senna (16th), Jim Clark (17th), Michael Schumacher (18th) and Alain Prost (19th).

By contrast, his two-times world champion team-mate, Fernando Alonso (first win in his 30th race), was not able to find the ideal set-up in Bahrain all weekend and appeared listless in the race, finishing only fifth.

Now, after only three races, Lewis co-leads the drivers’ standings on 22 points along with Alonso and Raikkonen, despite the fact that he has yet to win a race.

Some believe it has been easy for Hamilton, since he is in a top team and has top machinery available to him. True, but that also goes for the other three drivers at McLaren and Ferrari — and up to now all three of them have dropped the ball in some way or another. He hasn’t…

Lewis has all the attributes of a potential champion: outstanding driving and racing skills, a temperament of steel not intimidated by the Formula 1 environment at all, and a singular focus on success much in the vein of the likes of Senna and Schumacher. This cannot be said of many, if indeed any, of his rivals.

The one area in which Hamilton has yet to be tested is his reaction to adversity. Disaster will inevitably strike, whether through mechanical failure, a crash or just being off the pace. Felipe Massa came back beautifully in Bahrain after his disastrous race in Malaysia the previous weekend, while Alonso and Raikkonen – not forgetting Senna, Prost and Schumacher – have done so on numerous occasions.

From what he has shown so far, few doubt that Lewis will pass this litmus test with distinction.

The young Brit has already grabbed the imagination of more than just the Formula 1 world. The next step is victory, which undoubtedly will follow soon.

McLaren boss Ron Dennis says the team’s objective is to gain such superiority over Ferrari that the Drivers’ Championship turns into a two-way fight between its drivers. If it achieves this and Hamilton remains competitive — there’s very little reason to believe he won’t — it is not inconceivable for him to attain a goal no-one has ever been able to do.

Yes, Giuseppe Farina won the inaugural World Drivers’ Championship in 1950, but someone had to and the Italian had driven Formula 1 cars before then.

Lewis Hamilton can become World Champion in his first season in Formula 1.

Not a ridiculous idea at all.