Brad Pitt stops F1 traffic but Lando Norris is Silverstone’s future darling | Nick Ames

Finishing second at the British GP, the home driver showcases his superstar potential with Hollywood royalty watching on

For the boy in the luminous bucket hat, an achievement straight from the bucket list. This may not have been an afternoon of high sporting cinema, even if the presence of Brad Pitt and his phalanx of film crew members ramped up the glamour, but Lando Norris had the ending he wanted. Second place, with a stylish drive to boot, was some way to reaffirm his place in the Silverstone crowd’s affections and heighten the sense that he is almost ready to be this venue’s darling for the next decade or more. The wins will surely follow; this time, a revelatory weekend’s work from Norris and a buoyant McLaren did not feel too far short.

In the context of what, for the rest of this season at least, is inevitable domination from Max Verstappen this was a wider triumph for British racing too. Two local drivers had not stood together on the podium since 1999, when David Coulthard and Eddie Irvine formed a one-two. Norris was joined by his idol, Lewis Hamilton: a tantalising battle between the pair around lap 40 briefly offered the kind of neck-and-neck tussle, not to mention narrative, for which record numbers had flocked expectantly to the circuit since Thursday. Netflix may have cornered the market for soap opera, but Silverstone can still deliver the racing.