Chinese Grand Prix 2012: Jenson Button rues missed chance to fight for race win after hiccup in pits McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh conceded it was a shame but said victory was unlikely given the fact that Rosberg's tyres had not degraded as quickly as everyone expected them to. "One in a hundred cross threads and he [the mechanic] had to swap to another gun," Whitmarsh said. But I think it would have been difficult to beat them [Mercedes]. Clearly if we hadn't had the problem in Jenson's last stop we would have got him out in clear air and with fresher tyres he would have gone on to hunt down Nico. But, in fairness, Nico's tyres didn't fall away as we thought they might. Whitmarsh, though, was delighted with the way that Button and team mate Lewis Hamilton, who started even further back in seventh, had stormed through the field to secure the remaining podium places. Hamilton, who has finished third in all three races this season, now leads the drivers" championship by two points from Button, with fewer than 25 points - the amount on offer for a race win - separating the top seven drivers. "We have really got a great championship here," Whitmarsh said. We have got three winners and three very different races so far. We are not dominating but no one else is. Whitmarsh added that, with Sauber and Lotus showing excellent pace, this was a season when a drivers" ability to pass cleanly was going to be crucial. "This is going to be a season when you have to deliver, limit the mistakes and you have got to be able to overtake on the circuit," he said. You saw how many cars our drivers had to overtake. I am sure you could see the marbles that were on the track, there was a lot of debris. It is all very well having the DRS [moveable rear wing] but you are travelling at very high speed, you go out on the marbles. You will hear it and feel it and then to hit the brakes late is a very, very brave thing to do. Some people get that wrong but both our guys get it right every time.