Now the 22-year-old British driver will be looking to transfer that speed into the first pole position of his remarkable fledgling career.

Hamilton has so far qualified fourth on two occasions, while in the last grand prix at the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain he managed to put himself on the front row alongside Felipe Massa.

Hamilton has certainly shown so far this weekend that he appears to have the measure of the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona.

His time of one minute 21.233 seconds was 0.164 seconds quicker than that of the best set at the end of yesterday’s two 90-minute free-practice sessions by McLaren team-mate Fernando Alonso.

At the end of this morning’s hour-long run, Hamilton just pipped Alonso into second as the Woking team again dominated.

In front of his home crowd, reigning double world champion Alonso was just 0.08secs behind Hamilton thanks to a charging lap in the closing stages.

The BMW Saubers of Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld also served notice of their intent with third and fourth places, with both less than a quarter of a second off the pace.

There is hope on the horizon for David Coulthard that he might finally break into the top 10 in qualifying as he was fifth quickest with a lap of 1:21.556 for Red Bull Racing.

As for the Ferraris of Massa and Kimi Raikkonen, they were down in sixth and seventh places, albeit with the top 12 separated by less than a second.

The Super Aguri of Anthony Davidson was among that dozen in eighth, with the Honda of Jenson Button down in 17th and 1.5secs adrift.