With a sixth world championship this season, Lewis Hamilton’s place in motor racing’s pantheon is assured. Debate will rage over who may be the greatest of all but Hamilton, the black kid from a Stevenage council estate, surely occupies a position no other has managed. He has transcended the role of driver to perhaps a unique place in the sport’s history. To a broad global audience, Formula One is Lewis Hamilton.

With five titles from the past six seasons, this is the Hamilton era. He is the pre-eminent driver of his generation and the focal point of F1. A personality that is impossible to ignore and who stands astride the sport like no other.

Hamilton is that rarest of breeds, a sportsman who, it could be argued, is genuinely peerless. He has faced down and beaten the outstanding talents of Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel. He has unashamedly relished the fight, and neither the longevity of his 13-year career, nor the success, nor the new threat from the young guns of Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc, has diminished his enthusiasm.

“The core of what I do is that I love racing,” he said. “I love the challenge. I love arriving knowing I have got these incredibly talented youngsters who are trying to beat me and outperform me, outsmart me, and I love that battle I get into every single year.”

His performance in securing the title again for Mercedes this season, which draws to a close in Abu Dhabi on Sunday, was as good as any of his previous five. Indeed as of any of his 13 seasons since he entered F1 in 2007. Hamilton has been in a class alone, a driver at the top of his game with an iron-willed resilience, debilitating to his rivals.

David Richards, the chairman of Motorsport UK, first watched an eight-year-old Hamilton race in karts. Richards recognises how far he has come and his place in the bigger picture of F1.

Hamilton is in a class alone, a driver at the top of his game with an iron-willed resilience, debilitating to his rivals

“What strikes me now about him now is his maturity,” he said. “How he recognises he is a role model and the influence he has and the responsibilities that come with it. He is far broader than purely a driver in F1. He has opinions about the environment, young people, fashion and music. That is part of the greater appeal of Lewis today.”

Intriguingly during Hamilton’s debut season for McLaren in 2007, Jackie Stewart saw exactly this potential. “I think Lewis is going to rewrite the book,” Stewart said. “I believe Lewis will create the benchmark for a whole generation of drivers. Niki Lauda and James Hunt changed the culture of racing drivers, but they weren’t role models. They said nothing, didn’t give a damn. Lewis Hamilton can become a role model.”

Hamilton is that benchmark now. In recent years, record after record has fallen to him and only two remain. He is one championship behind Michael Schumacher’s seven and eight GP wins behind the German’s 91. Both are well within the 34-year-old’s reach.

Close, then, to becoming the most successful of all time, last week Hamilton appeared on the Graham Norton show, sharing a sofa with Kylie Minogue, Ricky Gervais and Elizabeth Banks. It was an indication of the position he occupies. There is no other current driver that one might even imagine would be asked to take part.

That such fame has accompanied his achievements is not surprising. Yet his rise to this position has not been simple cause and effect. At its heart has been relentless dominance on track, born of a commitment for which he is not given enough credit, but also there is the way he has gone about his racing and the honesty of a man who wears his heart on his sleeve.

Lewis Hamilton in 2007 when he drove for McLaren.

His recent post on Instagram expressing a sense of helplessness in the face of the climate emergency received huge traction and not a little criticism given his chosen sport, which he had to take on board.

“There is a lot of push-back on a lot of things I do, and a lot of questioning of everything I do and say,” he said. “You live your life under a magnifying glass. We’re only human, so at some stage you’re going to buckle a little bit.”

In a sport where technology is king this is the very relatable humanity of the man behind the wheel. Nonetheless it is on the track where he has made his most striking statements.

This season Hamilton won eight of the opening 12 races. Ferrari’s challenge failed to materialise and his Mercedes teammate, Valtteri Bottas, was beaten back after a spirited opening. Bottas remains his closest rival with four wins but numbers are cold, blunt objects with which to frame Hamilton’s artistry.

From a superlative season, outstanding moments come to the fore. Making the bold gamble of taking hard tyres for a one-stop at Silverstone work; coming back to beat Verstappen in Hungary after driver and team errors in Germany. His touch in nursing spent rubber to the flag in Monaco, and the complete control of taking a race he should never have won with a damaged car in Mexico.

Mercedes have largely enjoyed the better car this season but it is not an advantage Hamilton has always enjoyed. Certainly for three championships, that of his first title in 2008 for McLaren and in 2017 and 2018, he was not in the quickest car. Perhaps of more import has been how he has gone about the task. Even between 2008 and his second next title in 2014 he remained compelling. Always striving for more than his machinery could offer and often delivering. He won at least one race in every one of those seasons and is the only F1 driver to have won every year in which he has competed.

In that time there has been no sense Hamilton has been anything but an honourable competitor. The former driver Johnny Herbert astutely identified this as another reason Hamilton has such broad appeal. “He is the toughest man and the fairest man on track,” Herbert said. “He wants to do it in a way where he doesn’t get an advantage, he wants a good battle.”

For F1 and its owner, Liberty Media, these attributes are a fearsome combination. Hamilton takes the sport to an audience beyond any other driver. His presence on Instagram is unmatched by anyone in F1, with 13.7m followers. In the US, where Liberty is determined to build the sport, he is the star who reaches a mainstream audience.

From this perspective then, Hamilton is intrinsic to F1 as no other. The talent of youngsters such as Verstappen and Leclerc is hugely exciting and promises that on the track the sport is in rude health. But they will take time to even approach matching Hamilton’s global reach.

He has one further year on his contract with Mercedes and F1 needs him to stick around. Fortunately as things stand Hamilton appears to have no intention of stepping down but rather, continuing at the top with the same belief that proved remarkably prescient in 2007.

“The race is the most exciting part,” he said in his debut season. “The first corner, the first pit stop. I am just going to get stronger and stronger. I’m not yet at my best.”