Delivery on Demand

There is something unnerving about Lewis Hamilton. It's not his speed, his consistency, his maturity, his ability to learn new tracks immediately, or even his ability to put the car right on the line but not over it. Instead, it's his ability to exceed expectations and answer questions even as they are being posed.

Every new rookie who arrives in Formula One with championship-winning credentials is subjected to the same checklist of empirical criteria before their star status is acknowledged - first pole position, first fastest lap, first podium finish, first win, first win in the wet, first clean sweep of pole-fastest lap-win, first championship. On the flip-side of the star equation are the first major accident, first victory thrown away by unforced driver error, and instances of being dominated by his teammate.

Hamilton has so far avoided the negatives while checking off the pluses with unseemly haste - first podium on debut in Australia, first fastest lap one race later in Malaysia, first rookie in history to finish his first four races all on the podium, only driver in 2007 to finish all races so far on the podium.

Despite that unprecedented success, there were still questions about his ability to turn in dominant performances. They were not serious questions about his ability, just niggles that, prior to the Canadian GP weekend, he'd not taken a pole position, and had led all five of his career GP without converting any into a win. Almost any top tier driver can rack up podium finishes in a fast and reliable car. It's the ability to turn podium finishes into wins that separate the Sennas and Schumachers from the pack.

If the trend had continued, the ecstatic and effusive reactions to Hamilton's early performances would have quickly given way to concerns that he'd reached his performance ceiling and lacked the extra spark to dominate.

In Canada, just taking his first F1 pole position would have been enough to convince the doubters that the 22-year-old is still developing rapidly, and has plenty more to offer. But Hamilton clearly has little patience for advancing in increments. Going on to win the race, particularly in such dominant and unflustered style, added yet another check mark to his F1 resume. He is ticking off the milestones so quickly that even the most demanding observers can barely keep up.

The maiden victory in Canada was also of more value to Hamilton than a win at Monaco would have been. Hamilton knows Monaco well, has won there often in junior formulae, and the circuit is not suited to racing. So the driver with track position is rarely troubled by the chasing pack, even if he is driving slowly to avoid mistakes.

Canada is a very different proposition. Overtaking is possible, it's the hardest circuit on brakes, the surface is treacherous off the narrow racing line, and the drivers' rhythm and concentration is disrupted by the regular safety car incidents. To cap it all, Hamilton had never raced at the Montreal circuit before.

Yet his victory was so commanding that observers could be forgiven for thinking they were seeing things, that the leading McLaren was surely being driven by a German multiple champion with a red helmet, not a six-race rookie with a yellow helmet.

Sunday's race was immediately reminiscent of so many Grands Prix in 2001/2, when Michael Schumacher merely had to pitch up in order to win. If his rivals weren't blowing engines, stalling on the grid, clattering into each other at the first corner or getting held up in traffic, then they'd invariably get their tyre or pitstop strategies wrong. At times, you wondered if Schumacher's trademark red helmet didn't conceal a bemused "mine not to reason why" expression as he strolled to another effortless victory.

Hamilton had the same air about him on Sunday. Luckily for the dignity of the field, the ever dependable Nick Heidfeld was on hand to at least put up a semblance of resistance. If it hadn't been for the repeated safety car interruptions and Heidfeld's dogged but fruitless chase, Hamilton's advantage over the field could have reached truly embarrassing proportions.

Michael Schumacher won a chaotic 1998 Canadian Grand Prix © LAT

However, just as it was with Schumacher, the excellence of Hamilton's drive was magnified by the frailty of the opposition. The prime culprits were another dismal performance from Ferrari and the mistakes of a teammate who seems to have forgotten his strengths in winning two world championship titles. For the second time in three races, the usually unflappable Fernando Alonso sacrificed his race chances to a moment of ill-advised bravado at the first corner.

If nothing else, it's given Hamilton invaluable practice in the art of applying peripheral vision, and how to avoid being T-boned by a teammate who comes bouncing and skidding over the infield at the first corner.

It will also have reassured Alonso that McLaren have given him the sturdiest of steeds. If his several other off-track excursions and spine-jarring contacts with the kerbs of Montreal weren't enough to break the MP4-22, then mechanical unreliability will not be his downfall. Instead, he can blame that on handing Hamilton an eight-point gift while he languished in the minor points positions, even suffering the indignity of being passed and beaten by Takuma Sato in the Super Aguri.

However, Alonso could also justifiably claim that the vagaries of F1 fortune turned against him in Canada. Initially, it seemed that an opportunistic tactical masterstroke by Alonso - of pitting at the moment that the first safety car period commenced - had wiped out Hamilton's early advantage and put the reigning champion right back in race contention.

As it turned out, the 'masterstroke' was in fact a Hobson's choice of either running out of fuel on track or pitting against the new regulations and accepting the ensuing ten-second stop and go penalty.

The new regulations have turned safety car periods into something of a lottery, and Alonso is correct in claiming that the timing of the safety car could easily have ruined Hamilton's race instead of his own. However, he cannot claim that such an eventuality would have been just.

If Hamilton had no valid grounds to gripe that he'd been denied victory at Monaco, Alonso had even less reason to complain in Canada. By his own admission, a mistake at Turn 10 on Saturday afternoon cost him the pole position, and the weekend went steadily downhill from there. Even after slick work by his pit crew had resulted in an unusual pitlane pass on arch-rival Kimi Raikkonen, Alonso still contrived to surrender the advantage with yet another mistake at turn 1, handing the position straight back to the Finn.

Still, at least Alonso salvaged a meagre two points for an unsatisfying weekend's work. It is a mystery how two experienced campaigners like Ferrari's Felipe Massa and Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella failed to spot the pitlane red light, with solid points hauls beckoning for both. Fisichella even had to round the stationary BMW of Robert Kubica, who was dutifully waiting for the light to change to green.

Massa's Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen did at least manage to bring the car home in fifth place, albeit in completely anonymous style and upstaged by the rejuvenated Takuma Sato, who led Ferrari's franchise star for much of the race. Team boss Jean Todt has put a brave face on the Montreal weekend, claiming that the situation is not disastrous.

However, Raikkonen and Ferrari now find themselves in the same positions as in 2005 and 2006 respectively - more than 20 points behind a championship leader who seems incapable of making mistakes.

Kimi Raikkonen © LAT

Ferrari will pin their hopes on finding form from Indianapolis onwards, just as they did last year. However, even with Michael Schumacher at the wheel and even with the Bridgestone tyre advantage, it wasn't enough. It is hard to imagine Raikkonen and Massa achieving what Schumacher couldn't.

If the Ferrari fight-back fails to materialise at Indianapolis, that puts the championship focus squarely on the McLaren duo. Intriguingly, despite the gulf of F1 experience between them, they are both treading new territory. Alonso has never had to chase down a championship leader before, and Hamilton has never experienced the pressure of leading an F1 championship before, let alone ahead of a disgruntled multiple champion in the sister car.

Alonso's barbed comments to the Spanish media following Canada, that he has never felt totally comfortable in a British team that hired a British driver, served as a pointed rebuttal to Hamilton's "number two" allegations after Monaco. Just as in the classic Prost-Senna years, this is a championship struggle that looks likely to be waged off the track as well as on.

Initially, Hamilton could afford to approach racing the same way that Felipe Massa did in late 2006 - taking each race as it came and focusing primarily on establishing himself rather than stringing together a championship campaign. If he can rub in the advantage over Alonso with another victory at Indianapolis, Hamilton will return to Europe as the firm championship favourite.

It would have seemed a wildly unrealistic prediction in the pre-season. But, considering that he is yet to make his first race-ending mistake, and has probably forgotten where to park the car if he doesn't finish on the podium, it would take a brave man to bet against Hamilton's current form.

In typical fashion, Hamilton is the first to concede that the streak can't last forever, and that the bad days and disappointments will surely happen soon. For Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen, a disastrous race for Hamilton at Indianapolis would be soon enough.