Today Lando Norris got his sixth career podium, the first in 2022 and the second in a row at Imola. The McLaren driver had qualified in P4 but started the race from P5 after Sainz's comeback in the Sprint Race.

WAYAYAYAYYY! pic.twitter.com/iUnJdWqkR6

— Lando Norris (@LandoNorris) April 24, 2022

After a strong start, which had put him ahead of championship leader Charles Leclerc, he was overtook again by the Monegasque. Norris recovered the third podium position at Lap 54, when Leclerc spun out hitting the wall at Variante Alta.

The British driver was extremely satisfied with his and his MCL36's performance , as he said in the post-race interview:

"Amazing race, amazing weekend to be honest. To beat one Red Bull and a Ferrari is much more than were expecting. I’m happy. The team deserve it. From where we were in race one to now scoring a podium, they all deserve it, so top job to the team."

The great joy of scoring a podium is amplified by the hardships McLaren had to undergo at the start of the season, when both cars ended the race out of the points in Bahrain after missing out on testing time to solve a shift issue.

“I think today and this weekend, it wasn’t necessarily all about the car; I think a lot of it was the teamwork, the pit stop was amazing and just how we executed the weekend, which is what gave us this result."

Norris highlighted the importance of everyone at McLaren's work in order to achieve this podium, and the overall satisfying weekend he has had in Italy once again after 2021's two podiums in two races, including his career best result, P2 at Monza.

"With the start, the strategy, the qualifying, judging the tyres and all of this stuff, the smaller things that you don’t get to see, it's what got us this podium today, so it’s lovely to see."

"I guess fourth was still going to be an amazing position, amazing result for us and better than we were expecting coming into the race and into the weekend for sure.”

"It's great to see the team's efforts replayed, but there's still a long way to go before being able to regularly secure top finishes," he warns.

"We worked so hard in Bahrain, and we got so little out of it, and even the more effort we put into the last few races, it’s nice to see it paying off in a way. Honestly, we brought some small things, but nothing which has boosted us into P3."

Unlike Team Principal Andreas Seidl, Norris doesn't believe McLaren was the third fastest car in today's race, in spite of his podium finish:

"Me being me, I don’t believe we had the third best car today behind Red Bull and Ferrari. The Alfa Romeo was extremely fast as well."

"The improvements we’ve been bringing are definitely moving us forward, slowly forward and we definitely need to try and keep that up," he concluded, reminding that the Emilia Romagna GP is only the fourth race in 2022 and that there's still time to get up to speed with Ferrari and Red Bull.