At the end of 2022, the Grove-based stable signed a multi-year contract with its star driver Alex Albon, but uncertainty surrounds the future of his teammate Logan Sargeant for next season.
Former Mercedes chief strategy officer Vowles has publicly endorsed the American, who has yet to manage to score a point during his rookie stint.
With a focus on a five-year revitalization plan for Williams to turn it into a competitive team, Vowles said it was better to be honest with the drivers concerned than to attempt a headline signing with false claims, only to lose them sooner than expected.
Vowles said: “Anything you do to get them to figure out dummy numbers will give you a short-term gain but a massive long-term deficit, including the risk of losing a driver.”
Williams has hired former Alpine technical manager Pat Fry: Vowles said he spotted the British engineer in January, but it took three months to get him to agree.
Vowles added it was his long-term vision for the team that made the deal possible, while Albon remains “very comfortable” with the timing in light of Williams’ recent progress, with the team sitting seventh in the league. builders.
Williams has signed Pat Fry as its new Chief Technical Officer
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
“What I’ve done with both Pat and Alex is show them the reasons why we’re going to move with a long-term view,” Vowles explained. “The best thing to do is ask Alex.”
“But you’ll find that he’s very comfortable in the position he’s in right now, because he can see where he’s been at over the past six months and where he’s going to go over the next few years.”
Vowles said this blend of demonstrating progress and putting the building blocks in place for the future will ensure that those who believed in the project stick around.
He continued: “If anything else is done, at some point they will say, ‘This is not the reality of what you promised us.'”
“For this reason I have always focused on the long term and on a truthful analysis of the long term, while allowing people to believe in this vision”.
#Williams #Vowles #betting #honesty #attract #drivers