MONTREAL, Canada -- Toto Wolff believes laps like the one which earned Lewis Hamilton pole for the Canadian Grand Prix show why he's "different to others" and has been able to draw level with someone like Ayrton Senna.
What had looked set to be a tight fight between Mercedes and Ferrari turned into a remarkable display from Hamilton, claiming his 65th pole position by a margin of 0.330s on a circuit which usually sees drivers split by slim margins. Hamilton's lap of 1:11.459, the quickest ever around the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, was not only rewarded with pole but with a race-worn Senna helmet as it drew the Mercedes driver level with his boyhood hero's career tally.
Hamilton has just three more to get until he matches Michael Schumacher's record of 68 and Wolff is not surprised his driver his so close to re-writing F1's record books.
"Lewis has these days where you understand why he's different to others," Wolff said after qualifying. "Whether it's a particular circuit that he likes or just getting the car where he needs to have the car, with a certain behaviour, he is just stellar. And you realise that. You see that very special yellow helmet, 65 poles, which just confirms it."
Ferrari had started the day by claiming a one-two in the final hour of practice, which saw Mercedes endure a scrappy session. That changed in qualifying, however, with Valtteri Bottas topping Q1 before Lewis Hamilton moved to the top of the order for the final two sessions.
Wolff says the key was to change the team's qualifying strategy around tyre management; in other words, changing which laps were warm-up laps for the tyres and which were not.
Explaining what the team did, Wolff said: "Throughout the session we just continued to improve, particularly with Lewis. The car wasn't so great at the beginning but then when we changed the system from lap two and lap four to lap one and lap three, the first run was not great, the first lap was not great and we could see that the tyres were not where they should have been in lap one but then suddenly it came together. From then onwards it just clicked."
However, Wolff admits that had a negative impact on Bottas' performance, as he dropped to 0.7s behind Hamilton by the end of the session.
"The car went towards Lewis and the tyres went towards Lewis and for Valtteri the car and the tyres got worse throughout the sessions and was probably the worst in Q3. It's unknown territory."