Lewis Hamilton reckons he probably would have held off Jarno Trulli for second at Suzuka but his KERS not stopped working late in the race.
The duo enjoyed a tense battle all afternoon, with the McLaren getting ahead of the Toyota off the line, then pulling away slightly.
But with Trulli carrying more fuel into the middle stint and set to run two laps longer, Hamilton knew he had to establish a good margin over his rival to be sure of second.
He felt he was on course to do this until losing KERS, which meant Trulli edged ahead as he rejoined following his last stop.
"I think it was just before the last stop, or just after, I lost KERS," Hamilton explained.
"So automatically that loses us a good few tenths per lap, and when that happens also the brake bias changes and all these different things, so it was very hard.
"I had to have a 3s gap before the last stop, and I think I had a 3.1s, and then on that last couple of laps I think I lost half a second a lap or something like that.
"We were very close, but once he was in front of me it was impossible to keep up with him."
McLaren had expected Suzuka to be a tough race given its poor form at similarly fast tracks like Silverstone and Spa, and although third was a much better result than anticipated, Hamilton admitted that the car's lack of fast corner speed was still apparent.
"I couldn't match these two in the first sector, and that was purely down to downforce, but in the middle sector I was quite quick, and in the last sector with KERS we were very quick," he said,
Hamilton had hoped to blast both both Trulli and polesitter Sebastian Vettel into the first corner using his KERS advantage, but only managed to split them - and after that Vettel proved impossible to catch.
"I tried to get both of them at the start, but they both actually got a really good start - which is not always the case," said Hamilton.
"Sebastian drove fantastically for the whole race, so he pulled away into the distance."
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