McLaren boss Andrea Stella has revealed that the team is struggling with potential tyre graining as he gave a firm instruction on how to catch Mercedes and Ferrari.
The MCL40 car has proved to be third-quickest so far in 2026, although the team has been on the back foot following Oscar Piastri's DNS in Melbourne, followed by both Piastri and Lando Norris failing to start in China owing to glitches in the Mercedes power unit.
However, in Japan, Piastri was the closest challenger to the Mercedes cars, and took the lead off the line from third on the grid, and only lost it as Kimi Antonelli got a cheap pit-stop during the safety car period, Piastri pitting just before.
Detailing where he felt McLaren was compared to Mercedes and Ferrari, Stella explained that taking care of its tyres was potentially a problem for the team, as he gave a clear goal of where it must improve to consistently be able to fight at the front.
"When you look at the overlays in the race, you can see that Ferrari still retains some advantage in the corners," Stella observed to media, including RacingNews365.
"Definitely, their car is able to generate more grip than our car, and I think we benefit from a power unit which is overall more competitive. HPP has done a great job in terms of the overall competitiveness of the power unit.
"At Suzuka, there was no graining, and in the previous races, we have seen that when there is front graining, we seem to be slightly more susceptible to this phenomenon than Ferrari and Mercedes.
"Mercedes and Ferrari have better performance overall, but good news, it doesn't change our objective, we have to improve the performance of our chassis."
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