McLaren team boss Andrea Stella admits that Max Verstappen’s “below expectation” pace in the early stages of the United States Grand Prix gave it hope of victory.

Starting second, Lando Norris seized the lead away from the line and led the way until Verstappen, who lined up sixth, assumed first place into Turn 12 on Lap 27 out of 53.

McLaren responded by shortening Norris’ second stint, but the Briton struggled with tyre degradation in the closing laps and was overhauled by a charging Lewis Hamilton.

Stella asserts that McLaren’s strategy was centred around gunning for the victory, which evaded Norris by 10s as he was promoted up to second once Hamilton was disqualified.

“So on Lando’s side, we thought that the only first of all, we wanted to go for the victory,” he said. “So the only way to do that was try to go as fast as possible. Let’s see if the tyres are consistent or not.

“There’s no point in just taking care of tyres and then, you know, being just slow from a lap time point of view to achieve a certain strategy.

“And in the second stint, in the first stint, we worked very well. In the second stint, this meant that at some stage once Verstappen was close to us and then we were under attack. We couldn’t defend. And then we lost a little bit the tyres.

“So we pitted onto the second set of Hard. We tried to go as fast as possible because we knew that Hamilton would have been a problem at the end and even in this case, Hamilton had the better pace but also better consistency on the tyres.

“So from the point of view of pure lap time and from the point of view of degradation, we still have some work to do. But at the same time, we are very encouraged that we were in condition to think about going for the victory just by going as fast as possible.”

Stella concedes that McLaren’s dreams of achieving the side’s first win since 2021 were heightened by the slow initial progress Verstappen made through the top order.