Vowles won’t sacrifice Williams’ long term hopes for current F1 car

Vowles joined Williams in January and well understands the scale of the challenge that he faces to lift the team off the bottom of the standings.

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In a column posted on the Williams website last week, the former Mercedes strategy director suggested that he had little interest in devoting all-out effort to improve the current car.

“We are looking to set foundations that remain here not for just one year but more three to five years,” he said.

“It takes time to put those in place, it takes time to cement them and for them to take hold. What we cannot do is sacrifice any of those for the short-term benefit of the FW45.”

Pushed in Bahrain to clarify whether that meant no improvements for the FW45 during 2023, Vowles explained that while there would be some work on development – as the wind tunnel would still operate – he was clear about where the primary focus was.

“There's a balance, certainly,” he said. “But basically, the intent within the organisation is incredibly clear.

“If you have a choice between making a decision that improves us next week, or one that can improve us significantly more in six months, 12 months, or 24 months, you go with the latter of those two decisions.

“You still have a wind tunnel however, and that has to go through the process it normally would do to evaluate performance. And that will, I'm sure, result in performance 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 leave key technical roles at his organisation empty for now if he knows high quality candidates are coming in the long term.

“We certainly are not going to shortcut it to fill technical roles, for example, with people we can get in six months rather than 12 or 24 months,” he said.

“We will find the right people and put the right people in place. In terms of core structures for the car as well, we're not going to rush next year’s chassis.

“We will make sure we do this in the way that I'm more used to: take our time about it but make sure we take chunks of performance as we do that.”

Vowles has spent recent weeks trying to get a better grasp of where the squad needs to improve.

Although he thinks his analysis will still take some more time, he already is aware of how long it is going to take for the team to achieve its targets.

“The team has over the last 15 years been through a tremendous amount of difficulty, financially and otherwise, and it's survived through all of that,” he said.

“But it is just survival compared to other organisations that have had finance. And that's the luxury I had prior to joining.

James Vowles, Williams team principal

Photo by: Williams

“As a result of that, you have these stark differences between where we are today, and where we need to be in the future. And the order of magnitude, the cost cap is a limiting factor on all these things simply because it puts us in a position where there's a limited amount of CapEx, and it won't be enough to spend our way to success as I would probably define it.

“The pathway is, to a certain extent, a number of years required to get some of the core facilities to the level required to complete at the front. And that's not the work of six months or 12 months.

“Further to that, as I've discussed externally previously, as well, we are in a position where we are lacking key technical personnel and the team's definitely under strain at the moment to ensure that we're filling those voids as best we can. So, the pathway is not one of months, but years.”