Toto Wolff says he is clueless why Lewis Hamilton's bid for pole #105 fell apart in the Canadian GP qualifying

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff admitted that the team was not sure why Lewis Hamilton's challenge for pole position wilted after a strong run in practice. Lewis had a splendid start to the race weekend where he turned heads in FP3 on Saturday.

With it being the first dry practice session, it came as a shock to everyone when Mercedes went for a run on soft tires and finished P1 and P2. Lewis Hamilton was a whopping seven-tenths of a second quicker than George Russell at that stage.

Lewis Hamilton not being able to replicate the same form in the Qualifying and only finishing P7 thus came as a surprise. At the same time, Mercedes counterpart George Russell finished in pole position.

Toto Wolff was not entirely sure what happened with Hamilton and the reason behind his loss of pace. He told Sky Sports (via Racing News 365):

"It seemed as if Lewis had the upper hand, both cars comfortably beating everyone. Then in the end it got so tight, also for George, and for Lewis the time didn't show up. We can't comprehend at the moment why it wasn't a little more in our favor."

Lewis Hamilton's qualifying record against George Russell is now 1-8. The driver has struggled this season in qualifying and the one-sided nature is just not a good look for a driver of Lewis' quality.

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Lewis Hamilton reflects on another bad qualifying

Lewis Hamilton was also quite mystified by the sudden drop in pace. The driver had been flying in the practice session but suddenly struggled to hook up his final lap and fell too far behind.

Hamilton was not entirely sure what had happened as he said nothing had been changed on the car since Free Practice. He told Sky Sports:

"Firstly, congratulations to George for a great job. It’s really great for the team. Obviously everyone has worked so hard to bring upgrades back at the factory, so this will be a real huge boost for everyone back at the factory."

Hamilton added:

"The car was feeling great all weekend and as soon as we got to qualifying, that kind of vanished for me. The grip just disappears for me. P3, I had plenty of pace in me, and then get to qualifying and the tires won’t work. Nothing had changed on the car."

The Mercedes driver will be hoping for a better run in the race, and with the prospect of rain on the horizon, he might put together something special.