SILVERSTONE, Great Britain -- Hamilton Hype. Britain hasn't seen anything like it since the days of Mansell Mania.
Rookie phenomena Lewis Hamilton has captured the imagination of the people and media of Great Britain like no other British driver since Nigel Mansell. And any doubts about that have been erased by a barrage of media coverage on Hamilton leading up to his home Grand Prix in Britain this weekend.
Mansell ruled from the mid-1980s through 1994. Since then British fans have been looking for a new F1 hero. Even though he won the world championship in 1996, Damon Hill didn't come close to matching Mansell's massive popularity. Neither did Johnny Herbert or Eddie Irvine or David Coulthard.
Britain is unique in that it has nine national daily newspapers. Most countries have newspapers based in a particular city. In England, you can buy copies of papers such as The Times, The Sun, The Daily Telegraph,
The Guardian and The Independent on any day at any newsstand or convenience store in the country. It's like the United States having nine different independent USA Todays.
These newspapers and fans have gone nuts over Hamilton, not only in the previews of the British Grand Prix but all season long as the 22-year-old sensation has won twice and never finished lower than third in the first eight F1 races of his career.
A quick straw poll of the nine British daily newspapers showed that on the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday prior to the British Grand Prix they published 50 major stories on F1. Of those, 33 had some sort of reference to Hamilton in the headlines.
On Friday alone there were 24 big F1 stories, 15 of which focused on Hamilton.
And this is just the major newspapers, never mind local newspapers, Web sites, magazines, TV and radio.
Probably the only thing that has kept Hamilton from grabbing more headlines is the apparent espionage scandal that is being uncovered in F1. A Ferrari technician has been fired for allegedly trying to sabotage the cars as well as leaking technical secrets to a senior technical man at McLaren who has now been suspended by that team.
But some papers have managed to tie the stories together.
"Spy Probe Threat To Lew" screamed a headline in The Sun with a story suggesting that McLaren Mercedes driver Hamilton, who is leading the world championship, and his teammate Fernando Alonso could be docked points if F1's ruling body, the FIA, decides the McLarens have been designed using intellectual property rights illegally obtained from Ferrari.
A Daily Mail headline said: "McLaren starlet faces points loss as F1 chiefs start espionage probe."
Most of the rest of the headlines managed to twist Hamilton into the lead even if the story was about something else. The Times wrote about his teammate but managed to get Lewis top and center: "Alonso waiting for Hamilton's streak of good luck to run out."
Other headlines just went for the glory: "Lew Will Be Greatest Ever"
claimed the Daily Star.
There are four British drivers in the F1 lineup this year: Hamilton, veteran David Coulthard, rookie Anthony Davidson and Jenson Button.
Coulthard has been around since 1994, won 13 times, and finished second or third in the championship five times. But he never reached deep into the fans' hearts like Hamilton has or Mansell did.
Button has been the media darling for the past few years, but his lack of success has hampered his profile.
Button and Coulthard have made the headlines in recent days, but only a fraction of the times Hamilton has been on top.
Button gets a lot of questions about Hamilton, so his first response to what he thought about all the Hamilton Hype was: "It's the first time I've been asked this question!"
"He deserves the amount of hype he's been getting," Button added. "He's doing a great job, leading the championship by 14 points in his first season. You can say that he's in the best car, which he has been for most of the year. But he's still beating his teammate, so he has done a great job and he deserves the credit."
[Hamilton's] been flawless. He hasn't made any mistakes that I can see, and I am someone who admires success.
David Coulthard
This is Davidson's first full season racing in F1. He competed in three Grand Prix races prior to 2007 and spent the past five years working as a test driver for Honda. The Hamilton Hype, plus the fact that he is driving for the small Super Aguri team, has allowed Davidson to race under the media radar this season.
"It's allowed me to get on with a nice, quiet year," Davidson said when asked about all the attention Hamilton has been getting. "This is my first year and it is what I thought it was going to be at the start of the year, as soon as Lewis was announced by McLaren. So that has been quite a benefit for me to get on with a nice easy ride from you guys [the media]."
Coulthard has known Hamilton for more than 10 years as Coulthard's time at McLaren (1996 through 2004) coincided with Hamilton becoming a McLaren protégée in 1997.
"He's been flawless," Coulthard said of Hamilton's season in an interview in The Guardian.
"He hasn't made any mistakes that I can see, and I am someone who admires success. I'm not jealous. If someone is committed, works hard and delivers, then I applaud it. His start has been phenomenal."
Nigel Mansell helped draw massive crowds to Silverstone when he was competing in the British Grand Prix. A race-day turnout of about 125,000 was common. The traffic would be backed up for more than 20 miles in several directions.
Since then, a four-lane highway has replaced the narrow two-lane road that provided the main access to the track. And officials limit race-day attendance to 90,000 to help control the traffic congestion.
Thanks to Hamilton, this year's race is virtually a sellout.
Ironically, Nigel Mansell made an appearance at the Silverstone circuit on Friday when he drove a modern BMW Sauber F1 car in a demonstration at a parking lot near the track. The media was more interested in Hamilton, however. Unless, perhaps, they could get Mansell to talk about Lewis.
Whatever happens to Lewis Hamilton in his home Grand Prix this weekend, you can be sure that his name will be blazed across the headlines.
Dan Knutson covers Formula One for National Speed Sport News and ESPN.com.