F1 | Vowles Exclusive: “This is how Williams will return to winning ways”

James Vowels has no intention of hitting the panic button, despite Williams’ slowing progress in the 2024 season. At the end of the last campaign, Vowles saw the team climb to seventh in the constructors’ championship and accumulate 28 points. In doing so, he has received great plaudits for his results.

However, 19 months after his appointment as team principal, halfway through the season and heading into the summer break, Williams finds itself in ninth place with just four points in the standings.

It would be easy to think that the honeymoon period is over and that, to an outside eye, the team has slipped backwards.

But Vowles is keen to set the record straight, pointing out that when he took over he outlined how there would be quick wins. But what is clear from our conversations is that he is not content to finish mid-table.

His aspirations are to see this famous team back in contention for victories, but before he can do that he has to go through some initial suffering.

“We have to go back a bit and here’s why,” he said speaking at the Hungarian GP.

“It’s simply because I’m investing in 2026. I have to make the transformation. Transformation means asking people to compromise. But that’s okay. I feel completely comfortable.

Even in the factory the other week, there was a question: “Are we really happy to spend all this time working on the future, to have to compromise now?” And I will tell you the same thing: I am 100% sure that it is right, because I do not want to be the seventh, eighth or ninth.

“I want the ’26 car to be good, while the others around me in pit lane are focused on the ’24 and ’25. Not everyone can work on the ’26 car, but as long as we do the right thing to close the gap, if the worst happens, I’m fine with that. As long as I can see the progress in the systems development for 2026, I know I can translate that into a much higher success rate.

“Do I feel more pressure? No, because I feel really satisfied with this multi-year plan of about five years. The board of directors knows it, the investors know it and I am very calm.”

Vowles received a shock when he took over at Williams, finding the model for production and development outdated. He is now recruiting the right people to help the team move forward, especially to convince Carlos Sainz to sign up to his vision for the future.

Vowles is clearly ambitious and says the team’s progress should not be judged on this year’s offering.

“Fundamentally, there was no doubt that there were a lot of problems,” he says of his takeover of the team. “A lot of them are still there today. We haven’t gotten rid of them. But what we’ve been able to do in the short term is work on small things that quickly yield low-hanging fruit.”

However, there is a “but”. Within what we have at the moment, time and resources are limited and with a cost cap you can’t do anything – by the way, the cost cap is a good thing because it prevents many others from running away and doing four times what I can do.

“But it also limits the amount of change I can make in a year. So there are two buckets: there’s the amount I can invest now and there’s the amount I can invest in the future. And to go to the other one you have to draw from one of the two.

“As far as 2024 and 2025 go, we have massively compromised the present for the future and we will suffer from that right now, along with some of the technological changes we have made, the impact of which has been worse than expected.”

Alex Albon, Williams Racing FW46

Photo by: Erik Junius

Vowles has juggled his role with Williams, being a father and renovating a house, and while he admits he sometimes juggles too much, he says he loves all aspects of his busy life.

“I’m definitely busier now,” he says when asked to assess his first 19 months in office.

“I do too much. I don’t regret it, but I do too much. So, within a year, I decided to change careers. We’re renovating a 170-year-old house. We have a young daughter and a puppy, so I think we’ve checked off all the boxes that can be done.

“But I have no regrets because I am a person who loves to learn, to push myself until I find nothing. You think you have a limit and you overcome it.

Personally, what I’ve learned about myself is that I have a lot more ability and strength than I thought I did, but you never know how good you can be until you push yourself.”

“In a situation like this, you can sink or swim. I felt like I was swinging pretty happily and, as a result, that’s why I’m very comfortable or at one point more than anything else. So, from a personal standpoint, it’s everything I was hoping for.”

Having admitted that he has taken on too much, it would be a good idea to check out the improvements made to the house and whether the 45-year-old is getting busy with construction work.

“I’m lucky to have two brilliant project managers,” he says. “They’ve allowed me to not get involved in a dramatic way. My job is: I go and spend an hour and a half there, and in that time we make about 4,000 decisions and then they go and execute.

“I don’t have to go and check every day because I know what they’re going to do at the highest possible level. It’s a mix of accountability, but the decisions are still made by me.”