Dennis not ruling Hamilton out for 2007

But Dennis would not be drawn into speculating on whether Hamilton could be ready to join Fernando Alonso at McLaren next season, although he did not rule out the possibility.

Hamilton took his maiden GP2 win in yesterday's feature race, finishing 20 seconds ahead of his ART teammate despite a drive-through penalty early in the race.

He followed the feat with a second win in this morning's sprint race, moving him to second in the championship standings with just one point behind title leader Nelson Piquet Jr.

"He's doing a good job obviously, and he was very dominant yesterday," Dennis, whose McLaren team have had Hamilton under contract for a decade now, said today.

"It's very early days, and we'll see how his performance unfolds. Clearly, our position as a team is to have the best available drivers, and it is always nice to have a choice.

"[Mercedes director] Norbert [Haug] and I invested a lot of money and time in Hamilton, going right back to when he was 11 years old, I think. It's nice to see he has responded to the challenge, and he is doing his bit of the relationship."

Asked if Hamilton - who has taken Nico Rosberg's seat at ART as the reigning champion moved up to Formula One with Williams - could continue to follow in Rosberg's path, Dennis said: "It's not impossible; Nico is doing a very good job.

"We have a very clear objective to end up with the best available drivers. We're concentrating on winning races and are not too concerned about next year."

But Dennis has made it clear that Hamilton's ethnicity, and the prospects of becoming the first black driver in modern Formula One, will not be factored in at all.

"Colour is immaterial as far as I'm concerned," Dennis stated. "There's been inevitably over the years financial support that has been offered because of that element. We haven't been interested, we've rejected it.

"He is a young, focused, talented driver working hard out of the car as well as in the car."