Wolff urges 'galactic' Hamilton to banish 'negative' thoughts

Toto Wolff has urged his Mercedes drivers not to let "negative sentiments" take over after a Canadian Grand Prix in which he described a Lewis Hamilton aspect as "galactical."

Mercedes had its strongest showing of the 2024 season in Montreal, with the W15, aided by the new front-wing, proving a consistent challenger through practice, with Hamilton and George Russell encouraged by the feeling in practice.

Hamilton topped FP3 as Mercedes went into qualifying as favourites for pole, with Russell bagging P1 for the first time since the 2022 Hungarian GP, with Russell beating his team-mate home for third place in the race - the Brackley's squad's first podium of the year.

The team hauled 28 points for the result, including for fastest lap for Hamilton, for its best two-car result since a two-three in the 2023 Spanish GP but Hamilton was downbeat after the race, calling it "one of the worst races that I’ve driven."

Russell himself rued mistakes made, but Wolff has urged his drivers to focus on the positives - highlighting Hamilton's blistering pace on Saturday morning. 

"I think when you finish third and fourth, from where we have been coming from, then it is a positive race," Wolff told media including RacingNews365.

"Third and fourth is so much better than we had previously in the last few races, so that is good, but I think both drivers saw that there was more up for grabs. 

"We could have gained a position or two, and that is why there is a kind of negative sentiment, but if you would have given them third and fourth before the weekend, they probably would have taken it. 

"I mean in FP3, Lewis put up a lap that was out of this world, and then his long run was stratospheric, galactical."

Chance to show Mercedes is back

After the strong performance, Wolff further explained how he felt small improvements could have aided the car through the weekend - but hoped Mercedes now had a base on which to build for the rest of the season.

"There was a lot of pace but in qualifying, we seem to be very strong at the beginning and then lose a little bit of performance," he said.

"Maybe we could have optimised it at the end, but the car was very quick.

"But this track is very different to everything else, it is an outlier, so hopefully we can demonstrate that we have found genuine pace [in Spain]."