In the build-up to the 2025 season, Lando spoke extensively about how he handles high-pressure situations, and this was put to the test in Round 1, when he held his nerve to win over Max Verstappen in Australia.

Lando’s win in Melbourne marked McLaren’s first victory in the opening race of a season since Jenson Button in 2012. The 25-year-old was made to work for it, being pushed hard by Oscar during a wet start to the race, amid multiple issues for others around them, before a drying track allowed for a switch to slicks.

Further rain drenched the circuit again, though, and resulted in Lando and Oscar skidding off onto the grass. Both drivers recovered and headed into the pits for a set of Inters, but Lando had fallen to net-second, while Oscar returned from the pits a lap down.

“People on the outside, I really don’t think they realise quite how tricky a race like this is, especially when you are racing at the front,” explained Lando, who leads the Drivers’ Championship, while McLaren sit joint-first in the Constructors’ standings.

Speaking to F1 TV, he continued: “I made a couple of mistakes, but allowable ones, just because of how tricky these conditions were. You could see how many mistakes people were making, crashing, ending their races very early on, from start to finish.”

Lando recaptured the lead from Max Verstappen once the Red Bull driver pitted for Inters himself, but was put under immense pressure from the Dutchman in difficult conditions during the closing stages.

“When you have got a bit of a margin, you can relax and get into a really nice rhythm, but the last three laps, they were stressful,” he continued. “With Max behind me, because you have still got a drying line - a better line - as soon as you outbreak yourself by a metre, you pay the price immediately, and it can be game over.

“You are playing with fire for a lot of a race like today, trying to push the limits and having big snaps, and almost crashing a lot of times, but that is the level you’ve got to be at, to try and win a race against a driver like Oscar and a driver like Max.”

Another area of improvement that had been talked up by Lando and the team ahead of 2025 was the lessons learned from mistakes made during our 2024 Constructors’ Championship-winning campaign. Reflecting on the 57-lap contest, Lando believed that the team’s decision making had been pivotal.

“It was tough and stressful, but we made the right decisions at the right time, and that is what won me the race today, as well as good pace and good driving – strategy was also a winner today, so I’ve got to thank the team for that,” he said.

Expanding, he continued: “You try and eliminate the times where you get it wrong - you dream of perfection, but you are never going to always get it right, at the end of the day, because you cannot. Sometimes, you are five seconds up the road on track and that means you’re going to be unlucky because it starts to rain when it’s too late - you cannot see into the future.

“Today, we got it right because we were on our toes, we were ready, and we were prepared. I got called into the box, probably, five metres before I entered. That’s how last second it can be in this sport. In this sort of race, there’s so much pressure to make split-second decisions. You have to be prepared to make decisions in the moment, it is stressful, and it taxes your thought process a lot, but it is what makes it more rewarding when you get it correct.”

It was a tougher day for Oscar, who had looked exceptionally quick in the opening laps and was challenging Lando for the win, before being dropped at the back of the field following his rain-induced spin.

Despite his disappointment, the Australian asserted that there was plenty to be positive about, given he had started from second, looked capable of winning, and then charged back through the field from a lap down to ninth.

“The other 56 and ¾ laps were very strong,” said Oscar, speaking to F1 TV . “Obviously, I’m disappointed but I think there are a lot of positives to take.

“At the moment, it doesn’t really feel like that, but I would rather feel like I drove a race where I could have put myself on the top step than struggling around and finishing on the podium. At the moment, it hurts, but there are genuinely a lot of positives to take from it.”

There’s quick turnaround for the team, who are now headed for Shanghai, primed for this weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix, where we’ll attempt to win the first two rounds of a season for the first time since 2003.