James Vowles: “We need to present reasonable things.”
The boss of Williams explained not wanting to set precise short-term goals for the team's reconstruction, but rather to prove through constant progress.
Far from its heyday in the 1980s and 90s, or even the constructor podiums achieved in the mid-2010s, Williams has been stuck at the back of the grid for several years. The new boss, James Vowles, recently explained his vision for the rebuilding of the historic Grove team, which he must initiate. For him, it’s clear that it will be a long-term job. « When I discussed coming here, I gave them a very clear idea of the time it would take, and it will be a long process, he explained to Autosport.
Do not set a goal too quickly…
At Alpine, another team planning to reclaim the top, the CEO of the Renault group, Lucas de Meo, and former director Laurent Rossi, have often talked about a five-year plan to win », or even 100 races to win ». James Vowles, however, doesn’t want to hear that. » We need to present reasonable goals, but beyond three years, it’s unknown. It’s certain at five years, it’s 100% certain at 10 years. » Setting an objective of being third in five years is honestly not the right direction to take because it’s remarkably senseless. »
It must be said that the 44-year-old Brit knows his stuff and his CV speaks for itself. Vowles has been part of Jenson Button’s and Brown GP’s championship-winning campaigns in 2009, as well as Mercedes’ seven driver titles and eight constructor titles between 2014 and 2021. He then joined Williams in 2023 to take on the task of rebuilding the team, following its acquisition by American group Dorilton Capital.
With his experience, he has a vision, and he started implementing it with the arrival of Pat Fry during the summer as technical director, coming from Alpine. An addition that the former Mercedes employee is quite satisfied with.
… And show progress
For now, he wished to show progress gradually, which was rather successful with a visible improvement on the FW45 in Montreal this year. « What is more important is to show that we have structures and systems that allow us to achieve this goal in the long term », explained the English engineer.
What you can instead present is how we can set ourselves on the path and what are the key steps we are looking for during this journey. This year, one of them was to demonstrate that we could put performance on the car and use it effectively. Next year, one of our goals will be to develop this set of measures throughout the winter.
