Wolff found Hamilton's Singapore pole lap 'surreal'

Mercedes Formula 1 chief Toto Wolff found it "surreal" watching Lewis Hamilton's pole position lap during qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix on Saturday night.

Hamilton charged to his 79th career pole with a stunning lap during Q3 at the Marina Bay Street Circuit on Saturday night, beating Red Bull's Max Verstappen by three-tenths of a second, with chief title rival Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari finishing 0.6 seconds off the pace.

Wolff heaped praise upon Hamilton following qualifying in Singapore, revealing that he broke his own rule of not talking on team radio in order to congratulate his driver.

"I think from Lewis’ side, for me the stardust, [it was] the most epic lap I have ever seen from him," Wolff said.

"I’ve never go on the radio, it’s the first time I’ve went on the radio to him today, because I haven’t seen anything from him like this before.

"We knew exactly what kind of split times that car was able to do, Sector 1 and Sector 2, and when the purple times kept popping up it was surreal. So that was his driving."

Wolff also paid tribute to the Mercedes team for bouncing back from its tough outings on street circuits such as Monaco earlier in the year to recover and find its feet in Singapore.

"I must really really take my hat off to the work that was being done in the UK, in Brackley and in Brixworth, to prepare the car and the engine for this race because, together with Monaco, it was our weakest race track," Wolff said.

"We were really not competitive there in the past and we found the right clues. Again the difficult days in Spa have given us direction and at least for qualifying, this team has made a major step forward today, over this weekend generally.

"And again, it was the tough experiences from the past that have showed us the way."