Team boss Andrea Stella has concluded that tyre wear is the biggest difference between his McLaren and Red Bull Racing's team. The Italian tells Motorsport.com that with new tyres it is fine to fight against the RB19 but as the tyres start to wear Red Bull still has an advantage.

The Brazilian Grand Prix saw Lando Norris secure his seventh podium finish of the season, including six times in second place. After the terrible first half of the season, the Woking-based team is now fighting for podium finishes again. A win is even further away than they hope because of Max Verstappen 's dominance. Lando Norris sees the team's chances growing, but is also good at pointing out where the team is falling short. Speaking to Motorsport.com, the Briton said the following: ''I am not far behind Verstappen for the first 10 to 15 laps, but in that final phase I do fall a little too far back.''

Red Bull's biggest challenger

Team boss Stella acknowledges the development of the MCL60 and that his team has become Red Bull's biggest challenger. Stella does say that the biggest difference between the two cars lies with tyre wear. ''The more the tyre is used it seems that Max's and Red Bull's wear less. I think no more than one tenth every two laps,'' says Stella. He continues: ''It's quite a lot of wear. If you can reduce that after ten laps in a stint, it's about tenths of seconds. They are just better at that at the moment.''

Surprise at Ferrari and Mercedes

Stella was surprised with how quickly Ferari and Mercedes' tyres deteriorated. ''That was definitely a surprise. Normally when the tyres deteriorate so quickly it is to Mercedes' advantage. We don't know why that happened. I also expected Ferrari to be a bit more competitive.''