"It'll never happen." A phrase guaranteed to raise my hackles. I might even want to punch you if you say it to me. Because it's the thing people say when I walk past them and they see my face. It's a kind of smug, patronizing, smart-alec saying used by people who are, well, smug, patronizing, smart alecs.

I get it said to me now and again because I look very serious. Always. Even when I am having fun. I might have just won the lottery, spent the night with Angelina Jolie and had my new Aston Martin Vanquish delivered that very same morning, but I will look serious. Worried even. And there is not a lot I can do about it because, as we all know, in the same way you can choose your friends but not your family, you also can't choose your genes. And my genes include those of my father Harry who was a very serious man.

I inherited his sombre, serious look which the smug people think means I am worried, when actually I am not. So, thanks to my father's look, I go through life looking very serious and waiting for someone else to say 'it'll never happen'. In silent daydreams I imagine responding by saying 'well, punk, it's gonna happen now'. Then I pull out a 45 and shoot them.

Inherited traits are important. They, along with the environment in which we are brought up, influence the people we become. And that includes racing drivers whose persona is reflected in the way they approach their career and ultimately achieve, or fail to achieve, success on and off the track. Much is to be learned from their background. The are a product of it and the likelihood of them achieving success depends upon it.

I couldn't help but relect on this at some length whilst watching Hamilton being interviewed during the Australian Grand Prix. That's Anthony, the father, not Lewis. For in Anthony Hamilton you have the embodiment of the traits which have helped ensure that son Lewis has come into Formula One looking like the most exciting character to hit the sport since, well, Schumi. Confident, polished, a man who knows his time has come.

'Motor racing fathers' are an interesting breed.

There are the ones reliving their lives through their children, in some cases irrespective of whether the kid wants to be a racing driver or not. There is Rich Father who believes he can buy his way to success, often in spite of his son's ability, or Poor Father who will prop up the bar at the track and, if you have a spare five hours, tell you how Little Johnny can be the next World Champion if only he had sponsorship.

There's Drunken Father, whose son spends his career trying to avoid being associated with the Old Man propping up the bar in the hospitality unit, and The Womaniser who, if he's not chasing the son's cast offs, is chasing their mothers. Sometimes you get to meet all of them rolled into one. The rich father, living his life through the son, pleading poverty, boring everyone to death, getting drunk and trying to pull the grid girls. Oh yes, they exist. Even in F1.

So when you see Lewis Hamilton, immaculately turned out, highly articulate, single minded and every inch the consummate professional, you need look no further than his father in order to see where he got it from. I have only met Anthony once, for a short meeting in London, and I left feeling pretty sure that if the son is a chip of the old block then those who say that F1 may well have found its answer to Tiger Woods are probably spot on.

The investment made in Lewis Hamilton by his father and Ron Dennis has been chronicled elsewhere. Hamilton Sr funded his son's career, ensured his education ran in parallel to his career and thus provided the foundation upon which McLaren were able to build the arch professional we see today. Lewis even appears to speak fluent English, something of a novelty among British sportsmen - including some F1 broadcasters - who 'done' this, 'done' that and generally 'done my head in' when I listen to them being interviewed. Lewis never 'done' anything, but he did very well in the junior formulae.