Lewis Hamilton is on the verge of fulfilling what many believe to be his destiny. With three races of the Formula One season remaining, starting in Japan on Sunday, he leads the drivers' championship by seven points. But after falling at the final hurdle last season, does the 23-year-old Briton have what it takes to deliver the title for McLaren Mercedes? Examine the evidence, then you decide.

The magnate

This is Hamilton at his best: charming, easily given to laughter and with a ready smile. When Hamilton is in this frame of mind - which he often is, especially away from the track and the intense pressures of Formula One - he radiates charisma and magnetism that are attractive and endearing.

In Singapore last month Hamilton fielded questions early one morning from a group of guests associated with one of his sponsors. It was like watching “An Audience with the Superstar that is Lewis Hamilton”. He cracked jokes, spoke fluently and evocatively about his life and had everyone in raptures. “I'm just a normal guy,” he said. “Imagine what it is like for me.”

Hamilton loves to counterpoint his stellar status with down-home details of everyday routine that people find fascinating. Very much the star for the corporate communication age, he is as at home on stage with a microphone as he is in the car.

On such days it pays to be on your guard; he loves to take the mickey and will pick on someone he knows without warning, spotting a new hairstyle or an “uncool” shirt (for example, one with a Pink Floyd logo). “I think you'll find it's raining,” was how he put in his place one hack who was wearing shades on a dull day in Germany.

The chill-out zone

Hamilton often talks about music and how he uses it to relax, along with films and computer games and messing about with his younger half-brother, Nicholas. On a Thursday before a grand prix he can often be found in the chill-out zone, as if the music is still playing in his head after a long flight on a private jet. He arrives in a sort of world of his own, quiet, almost whispering answers to questions in press conferences and seeming to let everything wash over him.

It often seems as if this is a transition between Hamilton the private man and his public and sporting self. This set of “clothes” is a useful tool when people around him are trying to provoke him with inflammatory questions about the latest controversy in his racing life. Hamilton just brushes them away, claiming ignorance of matters he knows in exhaustive detail.

For God's sake, I didn't win

Hamilton hates to lose. This man was brought up in motor racing to be a winner and anything less will not do. This season he has gone through the painful process of trying to tame his out-and-out winning instincts in favour of achieving a steady flow of points, but he still hates the price he is paying.

In a car his instinct is to drive with attacking flair, to “go for it”, and suppressing that energy leaves him buzzing with irritation. After not winning, Hamilton's body language is like that of a man who has just found an out-of-date winning lottery ticket. Full of negative energy, tapping his fingers, searching the room with his eyes for nothing in particular, he looks as though he would like nothing more than to get straight back out on the track and do it all again, but this time do it properly.

The rumbling thunder

Hamilton is good at saying one thing and feeling another. It is a skill he has learnt over his long years of racing and dealing with the media. His body language is what gives him away.

Occasionally he will succumb to fury, but it will be encased in an iron-quiet exterior. He is seething underneath, every fibre of his being in revolt, but he will be talking calmly and saying enough for even the most insensible observers to get the point.

Hamilton's face almost sparkles with anger on these occasions and his piercing eyes tell you all you need to know. The best example of this was last season at the Monaco Grand Prix, where Hamilton turned up at the post-race press conference believing that McLaren had deliberately prevented him from winning for the first time in Formula One, at the expense of Fernando Alonso, his team-mate at the time. The young rookie was beside himself but kept a lid on his feelings. It was at that press conference that he muttered the immortal lines: “I've got No2 on my car. I am the No2 driver.”

I am a winner, just watch me

When Hamilton wins he gets on a high, like most Formula One drivers (Robert Kubica and Kimi Raikkonen are arguably the exceptions). This can be intoxicating for a young mind. Hamilton manages it pretty well. He views his victories as proof of his life mission, his feeling that he is destined to be one of the great drivers.

He radiates the abundant self-belief that has made him such a formidable competitor and he has no qualms, in this state of mind, about pointing out the frailties of others or underlining the quality of his own performance.

“I am the best” is what he is saying and “just watch, I will take this sport by the scruff of the neck and make it my own”. Some see arrogance here, others the right of a champion (or a champion to be).