James Vowles has opened up about the change in philosophy he has introduced at Williams over the last 12 months as he looks to carry out a complete rebuild and return the famous team to winning ways in the future.
Former Mercedes Vowles took on the role of team boss at Grove in the run-up to the 2023 season and guided the operation to seventh place in the constructors’ standings, ahead of AlphaTauri (now RB), Alfa Romeo (now Kick Sauber ). and Haas.
However, despite that immediate promotion from the bottom of the 2022 order, Vowles made it clear that his and the team’s focus going forward is very focused on the medium and long term and writing another chapter of success after the days of Williams glory in the 1980s and 90s.
“The change that will occur will not be one of 12 months, 24 months or even 36 months, it is years and years of properly discovering where we are strong and where we are not,” Vowles explained in a preseason interview.
“[It’s] Dig out the parts that are not strong in the organization, which will largely be infrastructure that is 20 years old, and takes time to replace. These machineries and items are not available in the market but are custom made for our purposes and requirements. That includes whether we are talking about software or hardware solutions.
“So, time will always be your friend. However, if I look back at where we were 12 months ago… it’s something I ask the organization to do frequently, ‘Look back and remember where you were 12 months ago and then look with pride at where you are today.’ , because it is a huge change in such a short time.
“Where we want to be is not the final solution; We have great aspirations to move up the grid. “It is a journey we are on and it will take time, but it is exciting.”
Vowles then shared how Williams managed to balance taking a step forward last year while also focusing enough on its 2024 package, the first car to include some of its “DNA.”
“We take risks,” he said. “We only finished seventh in that championship and the last race could have gone either way: we could be eighth or seventh right now. There were times, certainly, in the last dying races of last year when I thought, “This is going to be awfully tight.”
“But a good decision was made simply because we finished seventh, the best we could have finished last year… you have to admit it barely, but we did it. Therefore, I have no doubts about the decision we made, but even if we had finished eighth, I still wouldn’t debate it.
“It is no longer about a year, and it is not about 2024 or 2025, and that does not want to sound defeatist, it is rather to present to everyone that we have aspirations to continue moving up the grid. We are willing to sacrifice the current years to be able to do it.
“That’s a big change in philosophy and it’s a difficult change in philosophy, but I’m sure it’s the right one. We are not here to fight for seventh or eighth, or even fifth, we are here to start fighting for the right positions.
“If we are going to do that, we have to accept that we are going to break the infrastructure, break the systems, rebuild ourselves and leave no stone unturned. That is difficult for organizations, but that is the path we are on.”
Williams takes seventh place the classification After the first two rounds of 2024, failing to score in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, Alex Albon came close with a P11 finish on the streets of Jeddah.