Wolff: A blistering lap

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was a relieved man after he watched his driver Lewis Hamilton claim pole position, in the aftermath of a tense qualifying session for the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Hamilton edged Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen to guarantee his 70th top spot start, while his title rival Sebastian Vettel suffered a turbo problem which sidelined him for the session at Sepang and with it dealt the German's title aspirations a massive blow.

Despite a well below par Friday, Hamilton again delivered when it mattered, out-qualifying his teammate Valtteri Bottas by a substantial 0.682 of a second.

Wolff acknowledged, "A blistering lap. He put it all together. But we are left with some confusion because our car wasn't good. We didn't put our tyres in the right window the whole weekend and when the temperatures dropped and the cloud came over, the car was very quick so we need some answers."

"Maybe we shouldn't underestimate the driving factor. These cars are tricky to drive and ramping it up until this final section is important and he has been improving his driving all through the weekend like he did in Singapore."

Bottas, in contrast to Hamilton, was a disappointment as he simply could not extract the pace from his car. The Finn has now been comprehensively out-qualified by his teammate in the last four races, over half a second shy of the Briton in the last four Saturdays.

Wolff construed, "We need to put the dots together to try and understand. I don't think it's the upgrade issue [for Valtteri]. I think we have a solid aero upgrade but we weren't sure. After FP3 we decided that we didn't want to put Lewis on a completely new setup because this would be tricky."

The possibility of rain over Sepang is always a factor, wet races have been common at the venue hosting a grand prix for the last time. Indeed forecasts show that a wet race is feasible and in such a scenario, on race day, Red Bull may have the upper hand.

Wolff acknowledged, "You could see it in the rain yesterday when Daniel's car was functioning, he was two second quicker than us."