McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh believes his team's pit-lane mix-up during Sunday's European Grand Prix in Valencia did not affect Lewis Hamilton's chances of winning the race.

Pole-sitter Hamilton led from start through to his second pit stop on lap 37, when a misunderstanding in the McLaren camp saw Brawn GP's Rubens Barrichello move into the lead.

Hamilton entered the pit for his stop just at the moment the team sent him a message informing him to continue, but with the driver committed, he arrived at his garage with the team not ready with a new set of tyres.

At first it appeared the wasted seconds had been crucial in handing the victory to Barrichello, but Whitmarsh was adamant the Brazilian would have won his first grand prix in five years regardless of the error, which left Hamilton second at the chequered flag.

"We were racing Rubens, who was frankly in a quicker car," Whitmarsh told reporters.

"We had told Lewis to come in on lap 37 [but] our fuel monitoring told us very late that we could potentially do a further lap, which would have at least enhanced his opportunity of being able to race Rubens, so we made a very late call.

"That meant we told Lewis to stay out when he was committed to coming in, and we were unable to reverse getting the tyres ready, so during that stop Lewis lost two, maybe a maximum three seconds.

"It didn't affect the outcome of the race, but it was disappointing, but overall the thing that came out of this weekend is that we've made good progress, but in the race we weren't quite quick enough to win.

"We lost the race because we weren't quick enough.

"Rubens' race pace was very good, he applied pressure with a car which was generally slightly heavier than us, and we weren't able to open a big enough gap to make sure we could beat him."