In a classic MG sports car driven by former Williams driver David Coulthard, Williams joined all of the drivers’ taking part in Sunday’s race including defending five-time world champion Lewis Hamilton.

Hamilton had been at the wheel on Thursday when he gave the veteran team owner a ‘hot lap’ of the Silverstone track in a Mercedes high-speed road car, the pair disobeying instructions from Claire Williams, his daughter and deputy team chief, to do only one lap.

Instead, they did two with Williams, 77, admitting it was a thrilling experience that would live long in his memory.

On Sunday morning, however, Hamilton was a passenger during the parade in another classic sports car driven by his father Anthony with his brother Nic alongside him in the passenger seat.

The parade was a centre-piece of the build-up to the race, scheduled to be started by 12-year-old Justin Whiting, son of the sport’s former race director Charlie Whiting who died suddenly, aged 66, shortly before this year’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.

Whiting was remembered and his life celebrated Thursday evening at a ceremony at Silverstone where four-time champion Sebastian Vetter delivered an emotional and poetic speech on behalf of all of the drivers:

“In the name of all the current drivers, and for the drivers that worked with you, we finally want to say: You were a true racer. You were our race director. You were our guard. You were our friend.

“And you shall stay around because one is alive until the last one forgets about you. We will remember you. Take care, Charlie.”