George Russell insists that he would have won the Japanese Grand Prix had there been a "one-lap difference" in the timing of a pivotal safety car interruption during the Suzuka race.

Russell ultimately finished fourth and lost his Drivers' Championship lead to his victorious Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli, who sits nine points clear after three rounds.

Oliver Bearman crashed his Haas during the sole round of pit stops, triggering a safety car that gifted a cheap stop and the lead to Antonelli, who had trailed McLaren's Oscar Piastri, Russell and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc before the trio had pitted under normal race conditions.

Russell appeared to be left particularly frustrated by the chain of events, with the Brit having been the last of the leading trio to pit and his stop having come just a matter of seconds before Bearman's crash.

Having expressed his disbelief over the radio during the race, Russell afterwards told Sky Sports F1: "One lap difference and we'd have won the race, but then obviously we just made a meal of it thereafter."

Russell was third when the safety car came in at the end of the 27th of 53 laps, but was passed by Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton and his team-mate Leclerc, before eventually getting back past Hamilton to claim fourth.

He continued: "At the safety car restart I hit what's called a harvest limit, so I couldn't recharge my battery.

"I think a number of teams have had this problem on race starts. So I just got flew by from Lewis.

"And then obviously another battery issue with Charles, when he just flew by me and I was stood still.

"So, yeah, pretty frustrating. One lap difference and we'd have been having a different conversation."

While Russell would have taken the lead had he also got a cheap stop under the safety car, Antonelli appeared to be the quicker of the Silver Arrows drivers on the day, and had been rapidly closing the gap between the pair before Russell's stop.

The change to hard from medium tyres would have offered a potential pace reset, but Antonelli surging into the distance at the restart while Russell fought the Ferraris suggested the Italian would have at least been able to apply pressure had he started the final stint behind his team-mate.

Meanwhile, Piastri was arguably the unluckiest of all, having driven a superb first stint to keep Russell behind him and pitted early to avoid being undercut.

He had retained his lead over Russell after the Mercedes stop and, without a safety car, would have retained the lead after all the front-runners had pitted.

We will never know whether he could have resisted the pace of the Mercedes for the full contest, but the way he kept Russell at bay early on suggested he would have had some chance of doing so.

Russell's weekend had taken a negative turn on Saturday when a setup change ahead of qualifying left him struggling for pace.

He battled to second on the grid, albeit a significant three tenths behind Antonelli, but then had to continue to drive around the challenges posed by the setup during Sunday's race.

Mercedes' challenge was then heightened by Antonelli dropping from pole to sixth and Russell from second to fourth at the start.

Assessing why Antonelli was able to outperform Russell, Mercedes chief Toto Wolff told Sky Sports F1: "I see it a bit mixed. The mistake that was made collectively really put George on the back foot with the car.

"From Q1, it was not good enough anymore and he had to fight with that too today."

Wolff explained that the decision to pit Russell before the Bearman crash was taken to ensure the Brit retained track position over Leclerc, who was going fast on fresher tyres.

Wolff added: "With equal cars, it's going to be close but the moment where it was about going fast, we had to decide to protect the position against Leclerc but Kimi was putting in perfect times, so that made the difference.

"But he [Russell] did not have a car that was perfect."

F1 returns on May 1-3 with the Miami Grand Prix, the season's second Sprint weekend, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW - no contract, cancel anytime