Why the new Williams boss shouldn’t avoid ‘Mercedes B-team’ comparisons

“I wouldn’t consider it a mini-Mercedes,” says James Vowles of his vision for Williams after being made team principal last week. But it’d be advisable to treat his words with an element of caution. For one, the ex-Mercedes Formula 1 chief strategist uttered them in a media call organised by Mercedes, during which he featured alongside Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff, and the pair spent plenty of time talking about their life together at, er, Mercedes…

It’s easy to be flippant. The Three-Pointed Star made a conscious effort to control the narrative to ensure no one was reporting any falsehoods. This is an amicable parting of ways between Vowles and the grand prix superteam that’s won eight constructors’ crowns. After all, he has been commuting to Brackley since 2001 when the letterhead read ‘BAR Honda’.

With Wolff going nowhere any time soon, Vowles had to fly the nest to fulfil his ambition to become a team boss. Naturally, now in his new role, he wants to create a Williams in his own image. However, it’s seemingly inevitable that this target will revolve around resembling modern-day Mercedes, despite his reservations.

For starters, the philosophy at Grove is still the subject of criticism. Ex-team principal and CEO Jost Capito couldn’t change it, but Vowles must. To do that, he will almost certainly look to instil the ‘no blame’ culture that has brought so much success to the Silver Arrows and has subsequently been adopted by McLaren, and which Mattia Binotto tried to embed at Ferrari. Should Vowles fail to implement that change in mindset as his predecessor did, then Williams will continue to operate as F1’s rank backmarker for the foreseeable.

At least Vowles can appreciate life towards the bottom of the order. Yes, he’s enjoyed the turbo-hybrid era dominance and the troubled W13 might prove to be just a one-off problem child rather than the start of a protracted malaise for Mercedes. But he can also vividly recall the very worst of the Honda days through 2007 (eighth in the points) and 2008 (ninth) before the Japanese manufacturer exited stage left amid the global recession.

PLUS: How a Honda F1 failure demonstrates massive Mercedes progress

He has been a key figure in the recovery through the 2010s. It is only natural that he transposes some of that successful model over to Williams, and this will inevitably bring comparisons, whether Vowles wants to directly create a “mini-Mercedes” or not.

It's likely that Vowles will seek to implement some of the successful structures used by Mercedes at Williams

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

“For my perspective, Williams is an entirely independent organisation,” he adds. “It’s one that my success is subject and dependent on me doing a good job there. That has to be independent of Mercedes.

“It doesn’t mean that Mercedes and ourselves won’t have collaboration in some form or another. There was collaboration before I joined. But I have to do what is best for Williams… This is about me standing on my own two legs and making success with an organisation around me.”

Although Vowles, 43, concedes that he’s yet to visit the Williams factory, he will still have a decent appreciation for the scale of the task he faces. By virtue of having been an amiable figure operating in the paddock for more than two decades, people will have opened up to him about the internal shortcomings at Grove. Word travels fast. He will likely be going in more aware than 2020 recruit Capito was, the German having been out of F1 since the late 1990s except for an incredibly brief four-month stint under soon-to-be-ousted boss Ron Dennis at McLaren in 2016.

To recruit former Mercedes staff, even if it means morphing into something of a B-team, would be no bad thing just so long as it lifts the team off the foot of the table

The Mercedes customer powertrain deal will almost certainly continue. Should Wolff take another junior driver under his wing, as per George Russell, you’d expect them to do their F1 apprenticeship at Williams until the team is a bona fide midfield runner. And when it comes to navigating politics and forwarding a certain agenda, you can bet the two teams will be aligned for the key votes. Wolff acknowledges this, saying: “Having a sparring partner at Williams – someone that’s very logical, rational, while very experienced in Formula 1 – is of overall benefit for the Williams organisation as for Mercedes.”

One of the first things in Vowles’s in-tray will be helping to recruit a technical director, with Francois-Xavier Demaison having followed good pal Capito out the door in December. The prime candidates will likely be very similar in stature to Vowles: experienced and deeply impressive operators who must depart a big team to gain a top job.

Of the people who fit that bill, he will know those who he worked with at Mercedes, last season or before, best of all. To recruit them, even if it means morphing into something of a B-team, would be no bad thing just so long as it lifts the team off the foot of the table.

Comparatively young Vowles being hired as Williams team principal by owner Dorilton is a display of ambition and suggests the investment group isn’t a flight risk looking to sell up while F1 is a commercial sensation. It also heavily indicates that propping up the order just won’t do. So, if Vowles sticks to what he knows as he tries to lift the team, Williams could do an awful lot worse than getting over the taboo and accepting life as something of a Brackley ‘B-team’.

Williams could do much worse than keeping close ties with Mercedes as it builds back up to being a contender once again

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images