British rookie Lewis Hamilton has probably made the most impressive debut in any sport, ever

Okay. Fasten your seat belts for a bold sporting statement. Lewis Hamilton has made the most impressive debut in any sport, ever.

After winning the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday in a career only six races old, having made the podium in all the previous five, the word is being whispered (well, actually yelled over the noise in the pitlane) that this 22-year-old neo-genius has it all. Not to mention an eight-point lead in the drivers’ championship.

Perhaps it is too early for historical reckoning. Not ‘perhaps’. It is. But there is always fascination when humanity throws up some converging of talent, brain power and magic that seems to trump all that has gone before. We’ve been swept off our feet like scraps of paper in his 200mph slipstream. He’s young, he’s British, he’s winning, he’s nice. Are we going overboard? Is this the greatest sporting debut?

Is it possible that Hamilton has bounced into his sport qualifiably higher than, say, Pele, who made his debut in the World Cup aged 17, scoring a hattrick in the semi-finals and twice in the 5-2 defeat of Sweden in the final? Or Mike Tyson, whose subsequent descent into broken adulthood has irretrievably tarnished his record, but who won 19 of his first 22 fights on knock-outs, 14 of them in the first round? Or Tiger Woods, who won the Masters by the margin of 12 strokes at the age of 21, and became world No. 1 42 weeks after turning professional?

Or Olga Korbut, who won an Olympic gymnastics gold medal at 17, albeit in a sport where puberty was darkly viewed as akin to old age.

Enter one who should know. One whose credentials as the greatest sporting debutant are pretty impressive in their own right, and the machinery — unlike Hamilton’s — was all his own. Boris Becker was 17, unseeded, and apparently from nowhere when he won Wimbledon 23 years ago.

He came back and won it the following year, aged 18. It was unprecedented and incredible. We marvelled at his physique, his fearlessness, his ferocity. When he lost in the second round the next year and said: “It’s just a tennis match. Nobody died,” we marvelled all over again at his sagacity.

He also happens to be the man who was once clocked doing 326kph (204mph) on an Italian motorway in his Porsche 959 at the age of 20, so he knows what he is talking about when it comes to F1. So Boris (he was in London on Monday to talk about his upcoming stint for the BBC at Wimbledon), do you feel that Hamilton has made the most dramatic sporting arrival of all time? “Oh,” the three-time Wimbledon champion said. He hadn’t previously thought about it. Here was an arch-competitor confronting the existence of another.

“I’ve been watching Lewis like everybody else. I met him a couple in times in Bahrain and Monte Carlo with his dad and his brother. What he’s done is an amazing achievement, not just in one race, in every race. That’s where you can compare his achievement to my achievement.

“You’re good every time you’re out there, not just once a year, once in a career, but every time you race or you play, you’re fighting for the championship.”

There are sportsmen, there are champions and there are the seemingly superhuman. Hamilton is halfway round the circuit to superhumanity already. Yet, as Becker noticed when they met, the young Briton is far from ruined by the experience.

“When I met him I thought he was very humble and very focused. Not stuck up. Not arrogant, not at all. Seeing his brother and dad there with him, it really set the tone.

“At 17, if you had talked to my father or my sister, they also kept me down to earth. That’s important. Once I was playing on the court I was very intimidating, but not off the court. Same for Lewis, I don’t think he’s an intimidating person, but once he goes into a car everyone from Fernando Alonso, the two-time world champion, downwards has to sing a song about how good he is.”

Becker does not appear affronted to be potentially handed the bridesmaid’s bouquet. “His prime is now. My tennis prime was 23 years ago. So I don’t think about my first triumph every day any more. I wanted to be the best in my profession at one time. That’s enough for me. You don’t play sports to be the best sportsman of all sports. It’s unjudgeable. How can you compare one grand prix race to Wimbledon.

“Which is better? I don’t know. Now if he were to win the drivers’ world championship, I would put that as the greatest accomplishment for a debut sportsman. To win the whole thing, that would stand alone.”

But. The big ‘but’. Becker knows, as well as any superstar, that fortune’s wheel is always turning. “First of all right now, everything’s good. Let’s suppose he wins the world championship. Then the problem is to defend. The pressures are there. He’s not a rookie any more. He’s going to have to deliver. Anything but winning would be a disappointment. That’s really when the game starts. Right now it’s just kid’s play. The game starts when you have to come back and do it all over again. Which I did. Which Roger Federer did. Which many people in many sports have done.”

There is talk about Hamilton going on to earn £100 million a year. Mad, Monopoly money. It’s enough to turn anyone’s mind. But in Becker’s view, the grounding provided by Hamilton’s family, especially his father and brother Nicholas, who has cerebral palsy, will be crucial in his development.

“Lewis sees it every day, how fortunate he is. I saw him in Monte Carlo when he came second. He gave the trophy straight to his brother. His brother, in a wheelchair, was delighted with it. That really sets the tone for his life. He always knows that when he’s got money, glory, fame, beautiful women, it was a stroke of luck made him a healthy young man. I think that’s something always going to be there for him.”