McLaren team principal Andrea Stella reckons the team's execution let it down in Mexico Grand Prix qualifying and felt pole was possible.
But Lando Norris, who was quickest in both Q1 and Q2, suggested he had hit the limit of potential in his car.
He was unable to hit the ground running at the start of Q3 and was only fifth fastest at the end of the opening runs before improving on his follow-up effort, which earned him third on the grid.
Speaking to Sky Sports F1, Stella felt that performance was 'left behind' in qualifying, also noting Oscar Piastri's mistake at Turn 12 that consigned him to a surprising Q1 exit having headlined FP3 earlier on Saturday.
"Overall I would say the car during this qualifying session was competitive, and was in a condition to score the pole position, even though Carlos in the final session kind of raised the bar quite a bit," said Stella.
"If we take the natural progression, then with Lando we might have been there. But we have to say that the two laps in Q3, they weren't great.
"In the first one, there were a couple of mistakes - these overheated the tyres and then the tyres were going away from Lando.
"In the second one, it wasn't very clean, but it was important to make sure that it was decent enough to be there in the first or the second row.
"So we're all encouraged that the car was performing well, but at the same time, from an execution point of view, we left a little bit of performance behind, especially with Oscar in Q1, where he had the lap time deleted and he missed it.
"We have quite a lot of work ahead of us to get back in the points."
Norris did not necessarily agree with Stella's assessment and explained: "I was at the limit.
"I couldn't go any quicker, it's more I think the others just didn't get the most out of it. Pretty much every corner I was close to locking up and making mistakes, and I did that in my Q3 run one lap.
"But I definitely had nowhere near close to three-tenths left in the car. So it was more that they just went quicker.
"I got everything out of the car already in Q1 and Q2 and made us look like the ones to beat. But honestly, since FP1 Ferrari have been the guys to beat, and Carlos is on top today, so it'll be challenging to beat them tomorrow."
Speaking later to Sky, Norris explained that he had to drive with restraint to get a decent qualifying time out of the car in Q3, although he noted that this still wasn't particularly clean.
He conceded that making a play for the lead into the first corner might be his best chance of beating the Ferraris on race pace on Sunday.
"I struggled to get much more out of the car in the final two laps. I tried in Q3, round one, but it clearly didn't work. So I just had to drive much more under the limit in the second run.
"I'm happy. I think we just have not had the pace of the Ferrari all weekend. Maybe we could have had Max, but he did a good lap; mine was not as clean as maybe I would have liked. I just wanted to get a good-ish lap in.
"I think turn one, lap one will be our best opportunity [to win the race]. But Ferrari are just doing things well at the minute."
