When Lewis Hamilton made the F1 debut of the decade last year there were three different types of response: breathless adulation, venomous criticism, and total incomprehension. It’s the last one that interests me today.

Baffled mainstream journalists and fair-weather followers of the sport cried “Where did he come from?” in unison. As if this 22 year-old with immaculate race craft, consistent speed and PR-friendly grin had tumbled from the nearest tree.

Because as far as the outside world is concerned, Formula 1 equals motor sport and motor sport equals Formula 1. Except in America, where you substitute ‘Formula 1’ for ‘NASCAR’. And perhaps Australia, where you do likewise with ‘V8 Supercars’.

The answer to the question “Where did he come from?” is simple. If there were such as a thing as a ‘typical’ route to F1 through the myriad junior formulae that exist today, that’s what Hamilton took.

He karted for a decade or so, then switched to Formula Renault, Formula Three, GP2, and finally F1. Okay, so most rookies don’t make their F1 debut with McLaren (in fact Hamilton was the first one to do so since Jan Magnussen in 1995), but otherwise Hamilton ticked all the conventional boxes on his way to the top.

There are other avenues of course. For Sebastian Vettel and Robert Kubica, substitute the Renault World Series for GP2.

So if you’re a team owner looking for the next bright young thing there are many different national series to keep an eye on: British, European and Japanese F3 for starters, plus a range of national Formula Renault or BMW series (the latter launching a new European championship at several F1 races this year) and then ‘oddities’ like Formula Master or A1 Grand Prix.

So if we take a peek at these categories now, who are the F1 rookies of the future?

Top candidate has to be Renault’s test driver Romain Grosjean. He won the inaugural GP2 Asia championship at the Bahrain Grand Prix support race and I wouldn’t put my money on anyone else to win the GP2 series proper this year.

On the F3 scene Nico Hülkenberg (Williams’ test driver) is everyone’s tip for the Euro Series title (previously won by Hamilton and Grosjean) despite his engine failure in the first round at Hockenheim last weekend.

In British F3 New Zealand’s Brendon Hartley just tested for Scuderia Toro Rosso. He’s on the Red Bull junior team but needs to start beating his similarly Red Bull-backed team mate Jaime Alguersauri instead of crashing into him, as he did at Oulton Park a few weeks ago.

Other names to keep an eye on? Bruno Senna, Karun Chandhok (probably not good enough on raw talent yet but surely destined for Force India) and Mika Maki (debut F3 Euro winner last weekend).

And how to keep track of their progress? Check out maximummotorsport.co.uk. So when the Next Big Thing lands and everyone starts asking “Where did he come from?” again, you can say “I told you so…”