TABLES TURNED; Lewis Hamilton and McLaren own the F1 show.(News)

Byline: NIGEL ROEBUCK

Thus far, two words sum up the 2007 Formula One season: Lewis Hamilton. Five months ago, he was a free man; he could eat in a restaurant, go to the movies and walk down U.K. streets without bother. Eight races into his F1 career, he is thinking of moving, perhaps to Monaco, the tax-free enclave where Grand Prix drivers are so commonplace nobody gives them a second look.

Hamilton is a friendly young man, and an obliging one. At the Goodwood Festival of Speed, the weekend after his U.S. Grand Prix win ("Phenomenal!'' AW, June 25), he stood smiling in the rain, signing countless autographs for the sellout crowd. He even apologized later to those he missed. "Maybe I can catch up with them at [the British Grand Prix at] Silverstone,'' he said, but with the strictures on F1 paddock access, that won't be possible. Perhaps this did not cross the mind of a driver so new to the top level.

Not that it has shown in his driving. Through the first eight races [this story was written before the British Grand Prix scheduled for July 8], Hamilton finished every one on the podium: two third places, four seconds, two firsts. Never in F1 history has there been a debutant like this one.

Of course, the mainstream media have latched onto Hamilton for being F1's first black driver.

"Already,'' team boss Ron Dennis noted, "people are starting to speak in terms of an `F1 Tiger Woods,' and while that's obviously quite a compliment in itself, it's not relevant to our objective: Lewis is driving for McLaren because we considered him the best driver available to us as Fernando Alonso's teammate.''

Quite right, though by June, Woods-competing in golf's U.S. Open-said that he was intrigued by Hamilton and would follow his progress at Indy. That weekend, Woods narrowly lost to Angel Cabrera-and Hamilton narrowly beat Alonso.