The 2020 Austrian Grand Prix was… maybe… the most unusual race any of the team have ever witnessed. The first re-arranged fixture of the Covid calendar, PCR tests, bubbles, empty grandstands and masks on in a minimum paddock. Lando’s podium was also unusual – though joyously so: a wonderful short, final stint with a strong tyre delta saw him scythe through the field, closing in on Lewis Hamilton, who was second but with a 5s penalty.

With race engineer Will Joseph practically screaming in his ear, Lando put in a mesmeric final lap. The gap at the start of Lap 71 was 5.530s, the gap at the flag was… 4.802. Social distancing meant the podium ceremony took place spaced-out on the grid… but that just meant Lando got to spray the Champagne on his race engineering bubble through the pit-wall.

We didn’t tell him until later that he’d bagged his first fastest lap as well as his first podium.

This one really should be on the list of shame… but it certainly is unusual. Lando likes to optimise his champagne plume velocity by implementing an abrupt excitation strategy… basically, banging the base of the bottle on the rostrum to make it go further. He did that after finishing second in Hungary, only to see Max Verstappen’s trophy bounce into the air and fall off the top step.

Funny if it’s a metal cup, frozen horror if it’s a beautiful, handmade, porcelain vase. Lando did the sensible thing and tried to pretend it wasn’t him – but there’s quite a lot of TV cameras at an F1 event. The wonderful Herendi Porcelanmanufaktura company made Max a replacement trophy, which Max – with Lando in attendance – was given five weeks after the race.

The 1993 European Grand Prix was unusual for many reasons. It’s the only grand prix to be held at the Donington Park Circuit in the F1 era, it was held on an incredibly wet Easter Sunday, Ayrton Senna put on a display of dominance that was eye-opening even by his standards… and we had a spoof trophy. The race was sponsored by Sega, and thus Senna was presented with a Sonic the Hedgehog trophy on the podium.

Ayrton was game and held it aloft, before receiving the real (and classically beautiful) trophy. Both now reside in the trophy cabinet at the MTC. One oddity is that Michael Andretti was Ayrton’s team-mate at that race, and his Dad was present in the garage. So, we had Sonic and Mario together years before anyone else…

We’ve had many glorious years as a racing team and some… less glorious years. 2015 definitely falls into the latter group. Our powerhouse driver line-up of Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso couldn’t do much to lift the McLaren-Honda MP4-30 into contention, points were hard to come by, podiums were a distant dream.

We weren’t going to have any podium celebrations… so after being eliminated in Q1 for the penultimate round in Brazil, Fernando and Jenson decided to take matters into their own hands. Walking back up the hill from race control and the FIA garages, they took a detour up onto the Interlagos podium and posed for the cameras. Much to the delight of the fans in the grandstand opposite.

We’ve got a new race in Las Vegas next month – but by no means our first visit to Sin City. The Caesars Palace Grand Prix took place on a car park and waste ground next to the eponymous hotel in 1981 and 1982. Back then, temporary circuits were a bit more… ramshackle… than they are today, and so there was a podium built-up on a flatbed truck, with trophies being presented by a slightly bemused Diana Ross.

It’s most notable as the podium featured four drivers, rather than, as convention would dictate, three. Michele Alboreto won the race for Tyrrell and looked delighted, Arizona-native Eddie Cheever for Ligier appeared thrilled to be third in his local event. John Watson, second for us, had gone into the race with faint hopes of winning the Drivers’ Championship, and just looks tired – and less than thrilled at having a laurel crown placed upon his head. But Keke Rosberg, who finished fifth, and the fourth driver on the podium, looks happiest of anyone, having just been crowned World Champion.

Monza has the best podium of any F1 venue. It just does. The new version, hanging out over the main straight is fantastic, but the old one, with tifosi crammed into the pit-lane was, if anything, more dramatic. Back in the day, a McLaren victory – or indeed a victory for anyone not driving a Ferrari – pretty much guaranteed boos… but in 1989, McLaren’s Alain Prost was cheered – having announced his move to Ferrari for 1990.

He collected the trophy, the crowd seemed to demand he hand it over, and Prost obliged, dropping it down to the waiting fans beneath the podium – much to the horror of Ron Dennis. The trophy was torn apart, never to be seen again… though there’s a very nice replica in the cabinet at the MTC.

Lando Norris took McLaren podium #501 at Lusail over the weekend – though it feels podium #16 of the modern era, with the first being scored by Carlos Sainz at the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix. The only trophy that had gone into the cabinet over the five previous years had been from the 2017 Canadian Grand Prix Raft Race (win’s a win), so Carlos’ trophy felt like a reawakening.

It’s both the worst and absolutely the best. It’s the worse, because he was awarded third place an hour after the race finished, when Lewis Hamilton was handed a time penalty for colliding with Alex Albon. It’s the best because, unwilling to simply collect the trophy from Mercedes, we had our team photo with the trophy up on the podium, and thus Carlos got to celebrate with everyone. It’s a striking metaphor for the team spirit and effort that’s going into lifting McLaren back into contention… but as dusk fell on Interlagos, it was also simply a very nice moment.