“Remarkable” Red Bull F1 gap highlights scale of McLaren’s work

Verstappen took pole at Suzuka by roughly six tenths ahead of McLaren duo Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.

Having both drivers in the top three was a huge result for McLaren, but at the same time Stella felt it was humbling to see how much faster Verstappen was on the challenging layout, having hoped that his drivers would be closer to the Red Bulls.

“We expected to be more competitive than Singapore,” Stella said. “We were unsure as to whether…