by Team boss James Vowles is clear about the long-term ambitions of getting Williams back to the top of Formula 1 – and he has no problem admitting it’s not a quick fix.
After finishing seventh in the constructors’ championship last season, Williams is currently eighth in the 2024 standings, although the recent double points haul for Alex Albon and Franco Colapinto in Azerbaijan has improved its prospects.
Recent results are a far cry from the halcyon days of the 1980s and 90s, when Williams won nine constructors’ titles and seven drivers’ titles.
Vowles, who had championship-winning experience at Brawn and Mercedes before landing the top job at Williams, is committed to returning the team to its glory years and revealed at an Autosport Business event at Soho House in Austin that the entire team is on the same page. It depends on the long-term nature of the necessary plan.
“We have to accept that ’24 and ’25 are just stepping stones on our path, but they are not the key years,” he told Autosport editor-in-chief Rebecca Clancy during a panel discussion.
“These are years in which we will deliver light performance updates. We carry on. I think we’ve proven that enough. But let’s invest everything in our future, and this is the year 2026, in which almost every single rule has changed, not a single sentence in it is carried over from ’24 or ’25, not a single part of the car is carried over.
“It’s a completely new beginning, a blank sheet of paper, and for a team like us that means I’ve already got a large part of the organization working on 2026. It’s still a year and a half away.” But it doesn’t matter. You’ve been designing the ’26 car for about six months now. The best aerodynamicists work on ’26, they don’t work on ’24 or ’25.”
Jamie Chadwick, Williams Racing Driver and F1 Academy Advisor with James Vowles, Team Principal, Williams Racing
Photo by: Michael Potts / Motorsport Images
When asked whether Dorilton Capital, the investment firm that bought Williams in 2020, and the team’s many partners were comfortable with the potential loss of earnings from performance in 2024 and 2025, with attention focused on the new era starting in 2026 Vowles replied: “Without a doubt.
“In the first few conversations I had when I came to Williams, I laid out a path and the cost, and what I was told was, ‘Don’t shorten anything.’ Let’s do this right, because we’re going to do it right for once.”
“It takes time to fix the problem. But if you shorten anything, we might move forward a little, but you’ll eventually go back. You basically have to do this right. So there were two things we do.
“Each and every one of our partners is clear about what this journey means. It’s not one that we’re going to take a leap forward on next year. But if you want to be part of the second most successful team on the grid, who absolutely have the investment needed to get back to the top, now is the time to start at ground zero, and that is well received.”
With the changing rules and ever-increasing technical innovations available to Formula 1 teams, Vowles is also keen to ensure that the human element and the mantra that failure is an option remains with Williams in this quickly crucial phase not lost sight of in the history of the team.
“You need a culture of continuous change. What you did yesterday is no longer good enough,” he added.
“It doesn’t matter what technology infrastructure you have. It is created by the people and culture you drive. We do it. We develop it. Go ahead and make sure you innovate. And innovation to me is a word that doesn’t mean a small development, but rather a technological change that you make that changes either the sport or the world – in a big way, big words, but that’s exactly what it is for me Innovation.
James Vowles, Team Principal, Williams Racing
Photo by: Williams
“To get there, you need a culture where failure is completely acceptable. I fail most days, but we fail most days because we push everything to the limit of where it should be.
“So as long as there is a culture where there is no blame, but more importantly where you can learn from the mistakes you’ve made and improve from them, you can suddenly start to develop the momentum that forms behind it.”
Vowles is clearly under no illusions about the magnitude of the task at hand, but the articulate 45-year-old believes he knows exactly what is required.
“Williams is the second most successful team on the grid. Even today, only Ferrari is more successful,” he said.
“When the call came at the end of 2022 to join such a strong organization, an organization that perhaps hadn’t been invested at the right level for 15 years, but had so much potential. It was an easy decision – and it came from the most successful team in the starting field [Mercedes].
“If you have an organization that hasn’t been funded in the right way for several years, you typically have to fix a whole range of infrastructure issues, people issues and also culture issues that arise from that.
“The real solution behind this is, and I said these words the first day I joined the organization, but we’re going to break everything, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Alex Albon, Williams FW46
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
“It’s not about putting a Band-Aid or a Band-Aid over it. We’re going to go back to absolute basics and make sure we’re hitting people absolutely right.
“That means hiring the brightest and best and training the brightest and best. To give you an idea, we welcomed 110 young professionals to the organization. The organization is made up of a thousand people, if that doesn’t tell you what we’re doing for the future… it’s a 10-year program before it really brings strength, but that’s where we’re investing.”
