The Royal Mail is planning to honour Lewis Hamilton’s Formula One triumph with a commemorative set of stamps, The Times has learnt.

They are expected to be issued in the new year and mark a huge accolade for the youngest driver to win the world championship.

The move is highly unusual not least because Royal Mail’s release schedule for its 2009 stamps has already been drawn up. It will also mark a further relaxation of Royal Mail’s policy of not featuring living nonroyalty on stamps unless they are part of a larger group, such as England’s Ashes-winning cricketers.

Since then, however, a number of living actors, including Dora Bryan and Christopher Lee, have appeared on commemorative issues.

A spokesman for Royal Mail insisted that no decision had yet been taken on Hamilton. But he admitted: “It is certainly an idea which is under consideration.”

Royal Mail receives about 3,000 suggestions every year from members of the public with ideas for commemorative stamps.

More recently, it has been making efforts to attract younger fans to stamp collecting. Last year, it issued a series of seven stamps depicting the covers of each of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series of novels, while other recent releases have featured the Beatles and James Bond.

However, Royal Mail has also attracted criticism from some quarters by resisting demand to launch a series of stamps commemorating Britain’s war dead. Britain’s official war artist for Iraq, Steve McQueen, has asked Gordon Brown to put pressure on Royal Mail to issue stamps featuring British troops killed in the conflict.

McQueen has won support for the idea from many of the families of soldiers who have been killed.

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