Stella admits McLaren struggled to fight an "elevated" Verstappen at Suzuka

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said that the "elevated" performance of Max Verstappen across the whole of the Japanese Grand Prix weekend was too much for his drivers to turn around.

The Dutchman took a stunning pole position on Saturday in front of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, shocking everyone with one of the best laps in his Formula 1 career.

Thanks to that stunning lap, it gave the Red Bull Racing driver had the track position needed throughout the 53-lap race, with the papaya-coloured cars unable to break the one-second DRS gap, allowing Verstappen to cap off a sublime weekend.

Stella talks strategy as Verstappen shines at Suzuka

Speaking after Sunday's Grand Prix in Japan, Stella said that the race had already been lost to a brilliant Verstappen in qualifying.

"I'm sure our two drivers will have commented themselves that their qualifying laps were not the best in qualifying in their careers. Clearly, when Max elevates the game so much, you need to nail laps in qualifying, and you need to bring home any possible millisecond.

"Yesterday, it was indeed a matter of milliseconds, with 43, 45 milliseconds between P3 and P1. So yes, ultimately, I think the qualifying laps yesterday in Q3 were even more a determining factor than anything that happened today in the race," continued the Italian.

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Stella points out why McLaren couldn't win in Japan

Stella also spoke on the strategy calls at Suzuka, saying that placing an undercut on Verstappen was difficult for the team, with both Norris and Piastri close behind each other.

"That could have happened [the undercut]. It's unclear if we could have done that, but I think if we had pitted Lando, we wouldn't have been able to pit Oscar. That would have been a problem for Oscar."

"Oscar should have waited", continued the McLaren team boss. "Which I think would have been a problem with other cars, especially Russell, who had pitted, and we didn't pass."

This article was written in collaboration with Sandy van Wijngaarden