The EU parliament's chief Brexit negotiator has travelled to the UK to take part in the 2017 Silverstone Classic in Northamptonshire on Sunday 30 July.

The weekend-long event at the famous Formula One circuit sees 100,000 visitors flock to what organisers boast is the "world's biggest classic motor racing festival", including more than 780 drivers from 25 different countries.

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Guy Verhofstadt, the former prime minister of Belgium, is a big fan of classic British cars and posted a picture of him showing off his ride to Brexit Secretary David Davis on Twitter.

"With David Davis at Silverstone: great track [with] challenging curves. I explained him how to "remain" in the race [with] a good old British car," he quipped.

Verhofstadt, an outspoken EU federalist and senior MEP, explained to IBTimes UK last year how he used classic cars to bond with Davis when the pair met in Brussels in 2016.

"It's true for a good negotiations you needs tensions, [but] at the same time you also need to respond to each other on a personal level and that was certainly the case," he said.

"The meeting went well and it was the first time getting to know each... We started to talk about old cars. It seems maybe to a lot of people a little bit strange, but I like old cars."

Despite Verhofstadt's role as the EU Parliament's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, who oversees the EU Commission's Brexit task force, is leading the two-year-long talks with Davis under the watch of EU Commission President Jean Claude Juncker.

Davis and Barnier have, among other things, prioritised the issue of the more than three million EU nationals in the UK and the more than one million Britons on the continent in the talks.

The Brexit secretary most recently appointed Stewart Jackson as his chief-of-staff. A fellow Eurosceptic, Jackson lost his Peterborough seat at the 2017 general election. He had served as Davis' parliamentary private secretary.

Brexit European Union