Symonds: Hamilton ready for F1 jump

That is the view of Renault's director of engineer Pat Symonds, who claims that the performances of Jenson Button and Nico Rosberg in their first F1 season shows that teams should have nothing to fear about snapping up new talent.

"Ask Rosberg. Ask Button. Ask several of them," Symonds told autosport.com when asked whether he believe a rookie like Hamilton could be successful straight away.

"We are in the situation of always judging whether a new driver can come straight in, and I believe they can. It is a simple as that.

"Rosberg is maybe not looking as quite spectacular as he did at the beginning of the season, but compared to Mark (Webber) he is still looking really good, isn't he. I absolutely believe they can do it."

Dennis has said his team are in no rush to evaluate Hamilton's potential after suggesting last weekend that he believed new drivers took several years to reach their full potential.

"Wherever he ends up next year - and there is every indication that it should be an F1 car - you need to accept that history shows no driver comes into F1 and has a level of success that would make him a championship contender. There will be one, two, three years of coming to grips with F1," explained Dennis.

"So what we will try to do is prepare him best for that first year, and hopefully we will be able to reflect in a couple of years that we have done everything to put him in the best possible position, [to ensure he is] more competitive in his first F1 season than any other driver that has come to it.

"But it is now somewhat premature to say how that will unfold or with which team. The important thing is to keep his feet on the ground and his father's feet on the ground, and just concentrate on getting the job done."