Vowles joined Williams last month and well understands the scale of the challenge he faces to lift the team off the bottom of the table.
In an article posted on the Williams website last week, Vowles hinted that he is not interested in devoting all his efforts to improving the current car.
“We’re trying to lay the groundwork to stay here for not just one year, but three or five years,” he said.
“It takes time to implement them, it takes time to consolidate them and for them to take hold. We cannot sacrifice any of these aspects for the short-term benefit of the FW45”.
When asked in Bahrain to clarify whether that meant there would be no updates to the FW45 during 2023, Vowles explained that while there would be some development work, that’s not his main focus.
“There’s definitely a balance,” he said. “But fundamentally, the intent within the organization is incredibly clear.”
“If you have a choice between a decision that improves us next week or one that can significantly improve us in six months, 12 months or 24 months, you choose the latter of these two decisions.”
“However, there is still the wind tunnel, which has to go through the normal performance evaluation process. And I’m sure this will lead to some improvements that we can add to the car this year.”
Alex Albon, Williams FW45
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Vowles is clear that he is happy to vacate key technical roles in his organization for the time being, if he knows that high-quality candidates will be arriving in the longer term.
“We’re certainly not going to cut corners to fill technical roles, for example, with people we can hire in six months rather than 12 or 24 months. We’ll find the right people and put them in their place.”
“Even with regards to the basic structures of the car, we have no intention of rushing next year’s chassis. We will make sure to do it in the way I am most used to: taking our time, but making sure we get performance.”
Vowles has spent the last few weeks trying to figure out where the team needs improvement.
And while he thinks his analysis will still take some time, he’s already aware of how long it will take for the team to achieve its goals.
“Over the past 15 years, the team has gone through an enormous amount of hardship, financial and otherwise, and survived it all,” he said.
“But it’s just about survival compared to other organizations that have had funding. And that’s the luxury I had before joining.”
James Vowles, Williams team principal
Photo by: Williams
“The result is that there are huge differences between the current situation and the future. And the order of magnitude, the budget cap, is a limiting factor for all these things, simply because it puts us in a position where there is a limited amount of cash flow, and it won’t be enough to pave our way to success as I probably would like.”
“The journey involves, to some extent, a certain number of years to bring some of the main structures to the level required to get to the top. And it’s not a six-month or 12-month job.”
“Furthermore, as I have discussed previously also on the outside, we are in a position where we lack key technical personnel and the team is definitely under pressure at the moment to ensure we are filling these empty posts as best we can. So , the journey is not made up of months, but of years”.
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