Lando hailed his second-placed trophy at the US Grand Prix as “a nice little 100th GP gift” after he was promoted from P3 to P2 late into the evening, benefitting from Lewis Hamilton’s disqualification.  

The British star jumped polesitter Charles Leclerc off the line and led for the majority of the first half of the race before falling behind Max Verstappen. He kept touch with the Red Bull driver for several more laps but was later reeled in and overtaken by Hamilton, the Mercedes driver on fresher Medium tyres.  

Lando held on for third, his fourth podium in a row and his sixth of the season, but hours later, Hamilton was disqualified for a technical irregularity, promoting Lando to second. 

Pre-empting the inevitable question of whether it felt like a podium gained or a win lost, Lando told F1 TV: “I am very happy with today. I know that a lot of people are going to be asking whether it feels like I’ve lost a win today, but I don’t think that at all.

“To expect to beat a Red Bull was not realistic. I am very happy. It was a tough, long race, and I fought as long as I could, but we were missing that little bit that we needed to challenge them to the end.” 

In a separate interview with Sky Sports, he added: “I wouldn’t have said we wouldn’t believe it, but before the weekend, if you'd have said we’d have the results we have gotten, there’s a chance we’d have not expected it, so I am very happy.  

“We have not quite had what we’d want to compete against them, but we are still very happy with the progress we’ve made since the beginning of the season. The team are very happy. They have this feeling of ‘we missed out’, but you’ve got to remind yourself of where we were and the progress we’ve made in such a short amount of time.  

“I am still excited because we know we’ve got a lot more to come. The team are doing an excellent job in every area, and we are getting closer and closer.” 

In his 100th F1 grand prix start, Lando equalled his longest points-scoring streak in F1, with his 10th successive top-10 finish. He’s now notched five more podiums than last season and as many in 2023 as in his four previous seasons combined.  

He’s scored in every race since taking on our first major upgrade of the season, ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix, and reiterated that our ever-increasing consistency is a team-wide effort.  

“The upgrade does what it is meant to do,” said Lando, who was named F1’s Salesforce Driver of the Day. “We’ve not changed anything since [Japan], we’ve had two big upgrades all year, and that is it. We are fighting against the Red Bulls and fighting against Mercedes, and when you think how far of we were at the start of the season, it is quite exceptional from the whole team. I am proud.  

“I literally would have told you that you were stupid at the beginning of the year if you had said we would be fighting against these cars. I think every team and every engineer would have said it was unrealistic and silly to think of, so I am proud of the whole team. I know it feels tough to lead for so long and then lose out, but I think we couldn’t have done any better today, so I am happy.” 

Before taking on our first upgrade of the season at the Austrian Grand Prix, we sat in sixth place with 17 points, 137 off fourth place in the Constructors' standings, but Lando’s podium in Austin saw us leapfrog Aston Martin for fourth after collecting 225 points in the last 10 rounds. 

Speaking to Sky Sports, Zak Brown added: “That’s very important, it was the goal before the season. If you had asked me about fourth place after the first races, I would have said that I was thinking about seventh or eighth place. I am very proud of the team. We just have to keep it up.” 

With four rounds of the season remaining, Lando is confident we can continue picking up plenty of points. “We have good tracks and bad tracks,” Lando said. “We’ve had our very, very strong tracks, and we’ve still got some good ones, but not ones where we think we can really compete against the others.”   

“Vegas is still a big question mark, but there are no high-speed circuits, which is where we are very strong - where we’ve always been strong. We are on par with the Red Bull in high-speed corners, it's just the slow-speed [corners] that are slowing us down a bit.

“But we understand it and know it is our area to improve and focus on, and when it comes together, which probably won’t be this year, but next year, then I think we can do some good things.”