Piastri explains the reason why McLaren had no option to beat Red Bull

On the back of an unexpected defeat at the Japanese Grand Prix, McLaren driver Oscar Piastri insisted that the Woking-based outfit had no real option to beat the reigning champion Max Verstappen due to the low tyre degradation.

McLaren looked to be the dominant force across the practice sessions, but reigning champion Max Verstappen beat Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in the all-important qualifying session to take his 41 career pole.

Although Norris and Piastri made a good start, the Dutchman maintained the lead, and the two McLarens were unable to put Verstappen under real pressure in the opening stint.

The Woking-based outfit had two cars to attack Verstappen during the sole round of pitstops, but Verstappen and Red Bull were perfect. Piastri pitted first but the undercut was not potent, so he found himself still behind Norris after the only stops. The British driver had half a chance of grabbing the lead in those pit stops, nearly side by side with Verstappen in the pit lane and having to run across the grass as the Dutchman refused to yield.

McLaren finished second and third on a weekend when they looked to have the quickest car, but it was still a brilliant effort from the Woking-based outfit, which enabled them to further increase their lead in the championship.

Reflecting on the race, Piastri noted: "I mean, I think obviously the result is not exactly what I wanted, but I think in terms of the pace and the way I achieved the result is what I wanted. So yeah, I think yesterday was the day that kind of dictated your weekend a lot and I didn't get the most out of the car. So that unfortunately kind of dictated a lot of what I could do today, and that’s led to the result I've got.

Asked whether qualifying performances are even more important than it was last year, the Melbourne-born driver insisted that the lack of opportunities were mainly down to the low degradation of the Pirelli tyres.

"I don't know if it's necessarily more important. I think it's always been important. I think in a race like we had today where there's very little deg, it's a pretty easy one-stop, and you're pushing flat out for a lot of it, then yeah, it becomes very difficult to have an advantage with tyres.

"And I think in Suzuka in the past that is how you've generally tried to overtake people. This weekend, that wasn't the case. So I think it depends on the track. Bahrain, for example, might not quite be the same. But I mean, qualifying has always been important. It's not rocket science to work out that if you start on pole, it makes your life a lot easier. So yeah, I think that's the main opportunity from this weekend.

Pushed on to assess McLaren's strategy at the Japanese Grand Prix, Piastri noted that traffic conditions made it almost impossible to try something different.

"I mean, I think on the pit stop timing, Russell had pitted I think the lap before and Leclerc wasn't that far behind and we didn't really know what the undercut power was going to be like. And you know, we'd gone a fair way into the race on the Mediums anyway. So I think from my side there wasn't anything that was obviously wrong with what we did.

"And then at the end, yeah, I said what I felt. Clearly the team were happy with the way things were. I mean, if I was in Lando’s position, I would also be pretty happy with the way things were. So that’s fine. Just said what I felt in the car and yeah, that's how we want to go racing.