Lewis Hamilton 100 poles would produce two-hour video - Toto Wolff

Lewis Hamilton after claiming his 100th pole — Photo: © LAT Images

Mercedes

Hamilton 100 poles would produce two-hour video - Wolff

Hamilton chalked up his century in Spain

Ian Parkes

Saturday 8 May 2021 19:05

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has declared Lewis Hamilton to be 'operating on a never-seen level' after witnessing him claim the 100th pole position of his F1 career.

In another tense qualifying shoot-out ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix, Hamilton claimed his historic milestone by just 0.036secs from Red Bull driver Max Verstappen at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya.

To appreciate the scale of Hamilton's achievement, only five teams in F1 history have secured more poles than he alone has done as a driver, and it would produce quite an amazing video according to Wolff.

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Assessing Hamilton's latest achievement, Wolff said: "Every time I get asked the question 'was this his best lap or race', he's just operating on this extremely unseen, never-seen level.

"Today again the car probably wasn't perfect and he just edged the others out. The 100 poles are incredible.

"Andrew Shovlin [trackside engineering director] was just saying that if you put all the pole laps together in a video it would last two hours, so that just shows what he has achieved."

Hamilton revealed post-qualifying that the landmark was almost never on after opting for a wrong direction with the set up of his W12 shortly before qualifying and that left him off the pace.

Asked as to the mood in the garage in those moments, Wolff replied: "He was very calm. He very quickly said 'I think we've gone in the wrong direction', and you could see it in the lap times.

"Then they were tweaking around with the diff and whatever. He was limited with the tools he had available and what the engineers had available to put the car in a happier place, but somehow whatever they did was good enough for pole."

Wolff also had a response for the critics who would dare to suggest it is simply down to the car that Hamilton has now scored 100 poles.

"There will always be people who see it that way," said Wolff. "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 what he thinks and we think within the team.

"If we listened to all the noise that's being said out there we would become more distracted from our job."