Seven things we learned from the British GP

McLaren is back. After a strong showing in Austria last week, the team proved it wasn’t a fluke as Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri qualified second and third on Saturday.

And Norris capitalised on his front row start by charging into the lead at lights out, staying there for the opening few laps before succumbing to the inevitable as Red Bull’s Max Verstappen swept back past.

Both Norris and Piastri had the pace to hold second and third for most of the grand prix, but a late safety car allowed Lewis Hamilton to get the jump on the young Aussie and then challenge his compatriot at the restart. But Norris defended superbly and eventually pulled away to finish P2.

Meanwhile, and to the delight of the home crowd, Hamilton made it a double British podium despite having dropped back to ninth on the opening lap. He’d recovered to seventh by passing Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso on track, but lacked the speed to carve his way past the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz.

But when those ahead of him pitted, Hamilton managed to coax more life out of his tyres so that when Kevin Magnussen’s Haas spontaneously combusted, he was perfectly positioned to vault up into third behind the safety car.

And even though he wasn’t able to overhaul Norris, Hamilton was full of praise for the McLaren driver and the team… which fittingly was sporting some of the chrome livery he’d won his first world title with.

That’s now 14 British GP podiums in 17 attempts. Wow.

And that’s a run only Michael Schumacher, Nico Rosberg, Alberto Ascari and Sebastian Vettel have ever put together in the entire history of F1. Ascari and Vettel hold the joint record with nine consecutive victories (the former between ‘52 and ‘53, the latter in 2013), a benchmark that looks under serious threat now as Red Bull continues to dominate.

The team has won the last 11 grands prix and has only been beaten once since last year’s British Grand Prix, when George Russell took the chequered flag in Brazil last season. Yikes.

Yup, F1 is set to turn itself into a travelling movie set for the remainder of the year, as Brad Pitt and co-star Damson Idris began filming the F1 movie being directed by Joseph Kosinski.

With Lewis Hamilton producing, every effort is being made to ensure the film is as realistic as possible, and so Pitt’s ‘team’ was granted its own space at Silverstone, complete with a garage, paddock hospitality unit and mechanics. It was all rather bizarre.

One thing that’s very real though: the team’s car, seen here with a camera atop the air intake. It’s a Formula 2 machine modified by Mercedes, with Pitt lapping the track with it himself having done months of training to prepare for the role.

Expect APXGP to pop up at several more races this season.

Alex Albon has been impressive lately, hasn’t he? Both he and teammate Logan Sargeant showed that Williams’ latest updates are working well, and it allowed the Thai driver to qualify well and run firmly in the midfield on Sunday.

And after pitting behind the safety car he was able to get the hammer down on fresh rubber, storming past Carlos Sainz to grab eighth place and another valuable haul of points for the team.

Meanwhile Ferrari had a day to forget, failing to keep up with the McLarens and then suffering the double-blow of questionable strategy and misfortune with the timing of the safety car. They remain adrift of Aston Martin and Mercedes in the constructors’ standings…

If you thought Ferrari’s day was bad, space a thought for Alpine. Esteban Ocon was forced to retire early on and Pierre Gasly suffered the same fate late in the race after banging wheels with Aston’s Lance Stroll.

As well as scoring no points, the team then had to watch as main rival McLaren racked up 30 points for the weekend, more than doubling its tally for the season so far and vaulting itself ahead of the Enstone team.

That won’t do sales of the A110 Enstone Edition any good…

Brits love their F1, more so than ever apparently as 480,000 fans descended on Silverstone over the British GP’s three days of action. That’s not far off the all-time, global record of 520,000 set by the Australian GP in Adelaide in 1995! Just as well Norris, Hamilton, George Russell and the Anglo-Thai Albon were able to put on a show.

Long live Silverstone, the greatest F1 track on earth.