All eyes were on Lando at the start of the Mexico City Grand Prix as he lined up outside of the top 10 for the first time since Round 5 at Miami, and the British star didn’t disappoint, delivering a drive hailed as one of his strongest in F1.

Lando had initially looked like the strongest challenger to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in practice but suffered a shock Q1 exit due to an unfortunately timed yellow flag, which spoiled his key push lap. This left Lando starting from 17th on the grid, following a run of 13 consecutive Q3 appearances, but he appeared to relish the challenge of fighting through the field.

Lando started in 17th and leapt to 15th when the lights went out, before dropping back to 18th after pitting for fresh Hards. This was followed by a remarkable drive to eighth before a Red Flag on Lap 33.

Lando dropped back to 14th at the restart as he dodged a collision, but he then went back on the attack and climbed to 10th, before switching places with Oscar and completing his charge to fifth.

“I just stayed out of trouble [at the restart] and sacrificed four or five positions in the beginning - I then got comfortable, and I got in a good rhythm,” said Lando to F1 TV after achieving a personal record of 11 top 10 finishes in a row.

“I got the tyres into a good window and then had one of the best stints I’ve had, probably ever, from 14th to fifth. The pace was amazing, very enjoyable, good overtakes, hard racing, it was good fun.”

Asked where he could have finished had he started further up the grid, the Salesforce Driver of the Day responded: “I would have finished on the podium. I said it yesterday, ‘shoulda, woulda, coulda’. I accept it. It is just those final few pieces of the jigsaw to put together, and then I’ll be very confident.”

We’re now fourth in the Constructors’ Championship with 256 points and a 20-point buffer on fifth place, with three races to go.

“It was probably one of my most fun races, in terms of overtakes and things like that,” Lando said. “It was very enjoyable from inside of the car.

"The car performed reasonably well today, a little bit better than we were expecting, which is good news. We’re happy, but there are plenty of things for us to work on. The fans were amazing.”

Oscar finished eighth after swapping places with Lando, notching his seventh top-10 finish in the last 10 races. The Aussie rookie had suffered damage at the start of the race after a coming together with Alpha Tauri’s Yuki Tsunoda and was carrying this damage throughout the 71-lap race.

“A decent day,” Oscar said. “My first time in Mexico, and I enjoyed it. The fans were very passionate, so thank you very much to all of the fans and to the team as well. I think we exceeded their expectations.”

Speaking to F1 TV, he added: “I struggled after the Safety Car, there was quite a lot of battling, which I’m sure didn’t help, but I just struggled for pace. I took a bit of damage on the car towards the end as well, but yeah, just something to look into.”