© LAT Images for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd
After Lewis Hamilton secured his 100th pole position, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said “clearly there is something that he does much better than everybody else”.
Today Lewis Hamilton once again made history when he took his 100th pole position at the Spanish Grand Prix. Afterwards Toto Wolff gave Hamilton the ultimate praise.
“Every time I get asked the question about was this his best lap, best race… he’s just operating on this extremely unseen, never seen level,” the Austrian said.
“And today again, probably the car wasn’t perfect and he just edged the other ones out and the hundred poles is incredible.
“Andrew Shovlin [Mercedes’ Trackside Engineering Director] was just saying that if you put all the laps all these pole laps together in a video, it would last two hours.
“So that just shows the what he has achieved.”
Wolff then turned his attention to the critics that say Hamilton’s achievements are due to Mercedes’ superior machinery.
“There will always be people that will see it that way. I think the stronger you get, the more jealousy and negativity you will encounter.
“It’s totally irrelevant what somebody else says, it’s irrelevant these things and what we think in the team, if we would listen to all the noise that’s being said out there, we would be more distracted from our job.
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“I mean he’s clearly the outstanding driver. A hundred pole positions and growing as a personality on and off track, clearly there is something that he does much better than everybody else.
“He wouldn’t be a seven-time world champion if that was not the case.
“But I also think that the combination of team and driver needs to function and it has functioned over the last seven years and continues to grow strong.”
Wolff also commented on the scramble to modify Lewis’ car, once the seven-time champion let the team know they opted for the wrong set-up.
“He pretty much quickly said, ‘I think we went in the wrong direction’. And you could see it on the lap times.
“And then they were tweaking around with the different whatever you could, he was limited with the tools he had available and the engineers had available to really put the car in a happier place.
“But somehow, what they did was was good enough for pole,” concluded Wolff.
