Wolff defended Hamilton after he was out-qualified for the third race in a row.
Hamilton qualified seventh for the race, two places and 0.212 seconds behind Russell, who was 1.353 seconds behind the pole time.
Wolff said that Hamilton was trying out different set-ups on his car as the team tried to figure out what was causing their performance problems.
There was a different floor solution on Lewis' car that didn't work, Wolff said.
Wolff said it was "too early to identify a pattern" after Hamilton lost out to Russell in Spain.
Wolff said that he was very close to it and that one session was quicker than the other. Because the car is on a knife edge, if you put a foot wrong in terms of experiments on the car, there is 0.2-0.3 seconds between them.
Experiments have gone wrong with Lewis and not George.
The score is three-all when only races in which a fair comparison is possible are taken into account, and then Hamilton is slightly faster on average.
Wolff said that Hamilton's car had a different set-up that was making things worse for Mercedes.
He said that the car became dangerous and couldn't get the performance it deserved.
Mercedes has a lot of problems this season.
Two races ago at the Spanish Grand Prix, a new floor design was introduced.
The porpoising problem appears to have been solved, but the car still crashes into the track too much.
The bottoming has been very bad. The porpoising issue has been solved and we are now so close to the ground that we can get the maximum aerodynamic benefits.
It is bouncing around so much that you can't see where to brake.
We're not the only car. I think it's possible that half the grid are in the same boat and the other half are in different boats. Everyone is trying to find a solution to these issues.
Hamilton said he was having trouble at the beginning of the pit straight.
He said it was to keep the thing out of the wall. We can't seem to fix it because we have changed so much. We didn't have any in Barcelona, but everywhere else we have had it.
Russell brought the issue of bottoming to the attention of the governing body of the sport.
The problem has arisen due to the introduction of new rules where cars have a different aerodynamic philosophy.
They use a phenomenon known as 'ground effect', generating downforce by channelling the air under the cars, and this requires the cars to be run lower than before.
Russell said that it was just a matter of time before a major incident happened. A lot of us can't keep the cars straight.
The cars are running to the ground as we go around the last two corners at 300 km/h. Running an F1 car over 200mph from the ground is a recipe for disaster because of the technology we have today.
I don't know what the future holds but I don't think we can sustain this for a long time.
The idea is open to discussion but so far there is no consensus on how to change it.
Russell was not in the majority in the drivers' briefing, according to sources.
Hamilton said it can be safety thing. It is bottoming through corners at 180mph, and there isn't much we can do to stop it. We can't have this for a long time. It needs to be worked on. The drivers talked about it.
Hamilton said he woke up in pain on Saturday morning because of the bottoming, but he added that he had talked to his former team-mate Valtteri, who said his car does not have the issue.
There is no consensus that the cars need to be changed so early in the set.
At the official news conference on Saturday, the bosses of both companies said it was too early to make any conclusions.
Wolff said that they had seen cars that did not have the issue. Other people who have it have it worse.
I can speak for our two drivers, they are having issues and it goes to a point that no one can fix it. We need to know how that develops. Understand why some cars are harder to drive than others.
There is no chance of 80% of the teams agreeing to change. Changes can be enforced on safety grounds, but that appears to be off the table.
He pulled it all together on his final lap to take pole by a small margin.
The races have not been great for the man.
He has seen a 55 point swing against him in the last four races, all of which Red Bull have won, and while Leclerc has six poles in eight races, he hasn't converted one into a victory.
In Imola and Miami, Verstappen was the winner, but in Spain and Monaco, Ferrari lost what should have been wins, with an engine failure for Leclerc in Barcelona and a strategy mistake in Monaco.
The world champion won in Saudi Arabia, Imola and Miami. He thinks the aerodynamic upgrade they introduced in Spain has made a difference in the race pace.
He was excited for tomorrow. We'll have a lot of answers tomorrow because tyre management is a big thing here.
Even though it was hard to see in Monaco, we were managing it well. Our race pace has gone up since we upgraded. It will be interesting to see if it will be the case here as well.
I just want to complete the job. On the Saturday and Sunday it didn't happen, but on the Saturday it did. We don't need to make it work but it will be nice if we do.
I will try to keep the lead after the first few laps.
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