Tag: James Vowles

Teams need to take NFL inspiration for ‘the greater good of the sport’ – Vowles

Formula 1 needs to follow the NFL’s lead of working collaboratively as teams without worrying about who will win in order to strengthen the sport as a whole, according to James Vowles. The Williams team principal has been pushing for a change of …

Formula 1 needs to follow the NFL’s lead of working collaboratively as teams without worrying about who will win in order to strengthen the sport as a whole, according to James Vowles.

The Williams team principal has been pushing for a change of capital expenditure limits in the financial regulations to allow investment into the facilities at Grove, stating it’s impossible for his team to ever fight at the front with the current factory and equipment at its disposal.

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While Vowles acknowledges why rival teams are averse to opening the door to Williams gains, he says the wider end result of a more competitive F1 grid needs to be considered after failing to secure an agreement in the recent F1 Commission meeting in Belgium.

“This is about for the greater good of the sport and I really do believe this – and I appreciate I have more to gain than others – you need it to be that on any given Sunday you don’t know who’s going to particularly win and that dominance doesn’t exist the way it does at the moment,” Vowles said. “I think that’s good for the sport.

“To do that everyone needs to have facilities that are… not even on par, but the ability to produce performance and move forward and that’s not the case today. We had a great meeting with Roger (Goodell) – the CEO of the NFL – in Canada who explained the value of the teams went up exponentially, certainly by multiples, at the point where all teams realized it doesn’t matter who wins, it matters you work together on that journey.

“We’re not there today. We’re still on a journey where everyone is concerned, and rightly so, about the bottom line of where they finish in the championship today. It’s hard to know what’s going to change over the next two months, which is the next point we’ll get together and talk about all of this, because everyone’s fears of where they lie in the championship and how it affects them short-term and how powerful Williams could become as a result of it, will still be there.

“What I’m hoping, out of all of it, is it’s undoubtedly agreed in that room that Williams, amongst all the peers, is the one with the least amount of facilities and that needs rectifying. We’ll have another go at fixing that and seeing if we can get other people’s mindsets to modify.”

Vowles says there were good discussions recently around why it is not as simple as increasing CapEx across the board for all teams, but says if progress is to be made then other teams will need to accept they are giving up something to those with the worst facilities.

“If I wind back, February 20th, a few days after I started here, was the first day I put on the table that we as Williams need help, we cannot compete at the front with the facilities we have at the factory. That remains the case today, that hasn’t changed. And in five months or so it’s unfortunate and disappointing frankly that we’re in a situation where again that meeting went round in circles if nothing else.

“And to an extent it will do because everyone in that room wants to make sure they’re not losing out relative to everyone else, and there’s no way of doing it. There’s no way of just letting Williams gain facilities, especially in a circumstance where we’re sitting seventh in the championship.

“Other teams will be hurt by the fact we could put millions in, and some are in different positions – some don’t have the money to spend, some don’t want to spend the money, some are fearful of change. Aligning that in one room in the space of two hours is simply not possible.

“The actions we’ve taken out of it are that we will extend the deadline for the five votes for financial (regulation changes) from September to the end of October, that’s option number one. The FIA has been tasked to find another solution that is amenable.

“On every vote it wasn’t a surprise particularly how it voted, when we spoke about who needs to catch up, basically on one side of the table – this is a coincidence by the way we don’t line up this way – was the teams at the back end of the grid and on the other side of the table the teams at the front end of the grid, and it’d be no surprise that the back end of the grid near enough unanimously had their hands up for most of the votes and the ones at the front end of the grid did not. (Although) there’s some exceptions to that.”

Vowles confident in Williams progress

Williams can mount a realistic challenge for seventh place in the Formula 1 constructors’ championship this season with the strengths of its 2023 car, team principal James Vowles believes. Alex Albon finished seventh in the Canadian Grand Prix to …

Williams can mount a realistic challenge for seventh place in the Formula 1 constructors’ championship this season with the strengths of its 2023 car,  team principal James Vowles believes.

Alex Albon finished seventh in the Canadian Grand Prix to move Williams up to ninth place, one point behind Haas and just two adrift of Alfa Romeo in the constructors’ standings. Albon was using an upgraded car that is due to be available to Logan Sargeant in this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix, and Vowles believes the developments mean Williams will be particularly strong at a number of European venues around the summer break.

“I think realistically yes (P7 is achievable),” Vowles told SpeedCity Broadcasting. “We have the package now — we’ll do our best with it at the forthcoming races. There are going to be some tracks that definitely suit the teams (directly ahead) more than us. Perhaps over the next two you may see us drop back a little bit, but then you’re going to get a series of tracks where this car really starts to perform.

“What we’ve got to do is the same thing we did (in Canada) with Alex but not with Logan — we’ve got to deliver and execute a perfect weekend, clean car, reliable car. With Logan, obviously as incredible as this is and I’m happy for everybody to a point, we also have a car that DNFd and in that sort of situation you can’t have happen in this tight fight for the odd point in the championship.”

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Vowles has been outspoken about the areas where Williams has been lagging behind rival teams in terms of infrastructure and processes, and while he says the team should be proud of the way it delivered on its recent upgrade, he wants it to act as motivation for further improvements.

“What it means is already various bits — despite some of the obvious things lacking that I’ve been very vocal about — the odd bits work well together to deliver what we have today. That’s great news. What it means is that once we do have the infrastructure in place and the machines in place and the systems in place, it will deliver more and more.

“It means the wind tunnel is delivering aerodynamic performance and it’s correlating to the car. These are great additions, but even in those areas there’s a tremendous amount more work to do to optimize it. I think what it more means for the team is you’ll see everyone’s shoulders almost having a weight off them.

“Now we have to be careful with that — you can’t relax. This is where you’ve got to dig deep, actually deeper than before and get on with things, but even so it gives the team just reward for their work.”

New sprint rules must avoid spoiling the flow of race weekends – Vowles

Formula 1’s new sprint rules are still being finalized to make sure that changes don’t inadvertently destroy the rest of a race weekend, according to Williams team principal James Vowles (pictured middle, above). Formula 1 teams have agreed to drop …

Formula 1’s new sprint rules are still being finalized to make sure that changes don’t inadvertently destroy the rest of a race weekend, according to Williams team principal James Vowles (pictured middle, above).

Formula 1 teams have agreed to drop FP2 during a sprint weekend in favor of an extra qualifying session bespoke to the short Saturday race, essentially making that a standalone day with Friday qualifying setting the grid for the grand prix. Vowles says the collective approach between all team bosses shows a clear desire to try and improve the sport but that work is still required to make sure the final format is an overall step forward.

“On the new format, first and foremost there was a very good meeting where myself and other team principals sat down and discussed, ‘What would be good for the sport?’” Vowles told SiriusXM. “And it really was that level of discussion — a discussion that I don’t think could have been held that way five years ago, because it was all about individuals and what’s best for your team back then.

“We agreed that actually FP2 is probably not the right… It existed previously as a practice session; it was an hour, but we weren’t really doing anything. We were going around in circles because we enjoy doing that but we weren’t learning a tremendous amount, so the question was should we change that to a qualifying session? And there was very positive discussion around the table really that that’s probably a good direction of travel for the sport. But it has to be done in the right way.

“I think recent comments from Toto (Wolff, Mercedes team principal) and others around that sort of suggested we need to be careful that we don’t change too much that makes FP2 better but completely destroys the remainder of the race weekend. And it’s very easy to do — the rules are on a knife edge and there’s a limited amount of resource available to us.

“But I think globally the concept’s right. The sport will be more interesting if we had a second qualifying session there, we just need to carve the rules out. There’s meetings going on at the moment to do so to make sure that we have the right format. Then there will be a vote to make sure we’re all happy, we’ve got the right set of rules that move it forward. So the new format is in a proposal stage at the moment, moving hopefully to a complete stage later.”

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The current proposal includes the Saturday qualifying session following the same format but with shorter time windows for running, resulting in less track time overall. A final vote is set to take place on April 25, and Vowles says regardless of any changes the sprint in Baku is going to be particularly challenging for rookies such as Logan Sargeant.

A lot to take on in a short time for newcomers like Williams rookie Logan Sargeant. Glenn Dunbar/Motorsport Images

“A normal race weekend, normally we get Friday where we do two hours of practice, and then again on Saturday morning a third hour. It may seem a little bit excessive but take the case of Logan for example — three hours, and you’re not running for all three hours, you’re probably running for about half an hour, 35 minutes. There’s a limited amount of tires, fuel, setup time, so that’s maybe an hour and a half of time full stop before he gets into the race. That’s it.

“Baku’s a tricky circuit as well. Go to a sprint race weekend, what happens now is we get just one hour, that’s all we get to basically get the car set up.

“We’ll try and fit in a little bit of a qualifying program, a little bit of a race program to make sure the car’s OK. That’s it. Once that’s done, that setup is on the car for the remainder of that race weekend and we’ll go straight into a qualifying session in the evening of Friday.

“So from a driver perspective it’s a little bit like you’re being shocked and dumped in ice water — you’ve got to immediately get on with the pace. Especially for someone like Logan where experience matters and laps matter, it’s not a lot of time to get into the flow of the weekend.”

Williams funded Sargeant to F1 after Merc interest – Vowles

Williams team principal James Vowles says he previously considered Logan Sargeant for the Mercedes young driver program before the American was funded through Formula 2 by his current team. Sargeant was handed a race seat at Williams last season, …

Williams team principal James Vowles says he previously considered Logan Sargeant for the Mercedes young driver program before the American was funded through Formula 2 by his current team.

Sargeant was handed a race seat at Williams last season, prior to Vowles being named as team principal in place of Jost Capito, and will make his second Formula 1 start in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix this weekend. After a strong first race weekend in Bahrain, Vowles says the performance from Sargeant was instantly impressive and he’s expecting to see further progress from the rookie.

“From the first laps of testing, immediately you could see that the pace was there,” Vowles said. “I was a little bit reticent in wondering whether it would take him a little bit of time to get used to it. The second aspect is, it’s his first grand prix — the pressure on your shoulders is enormous and he took it in his stride.

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“He was three-wide through Turn 1. Normally in your rookie race, that ends up in disaster and he just dealt with it, with enormous amounts of maturity. And from then onwards, I’m sure as you’ll see, throughout the year, he’ll step forward.”

There was no reticence on Sargeant’s part when the lights went out in Bahrain. Andy Hone/Motorsport Images

Explaining the reticence, Vowles revealed he had been looking at Sargeant earlier in his career when he compared well to Oscar Piastri in Formula 3, but ultimately felt the timing wasn’t right for Mercedes to hire him.

“My path for Logan actually crossed several years prior to that. He came to Mercedes for a sim evaluation and I was interested in looking at him because he had performance, especially when you go back to his Formula 3 performance in an average team. He was there with Oscar and I rate Oscar also highly.

“At the time in Mercedes we had a good suite of drivers. So that was where my relationship with him ended. Prior to me arriving at Williams, Williams funded — it’s very important to state this — his Formula 2 career, so he is now salaried as a professional driver and Williams funded him because they had deep belief that he was the real deal.

“My reticence came from the fact that prior to that it’s difficult to really judge him. But I have to say, he’s now been in the car, I now have the ability to look at his data, and he is here on merit. And as a result of Williams investing correctly in him, he’s now a professional driver, a deserving driver on the grid at the same time. So it just shows you that in my previous life I was wrong and Williams were right!”

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Vowles believes Williams lost sight of excellence

The Williams Formula 1 team lost sight of what excellence is during years of financial and sporting struggle, according to its new team principal James Vowles. Vowles (pictured at left, above) replaced Jost Capito over the winter, but only began …

The Williams Formula 1 team lost sight of what excellence is during years of financial and sporting struggle, according to its new team principal James Vowles.

Vowles (pictured at left, above) replaced Jost Capito over the winter, but only began work at the team’s Grove, UK headquarters in February shortly before the start of pre-season testing. Joining from Mercedes — where he was motorsport strategy director — Vowles had been part of a long era of dominance. He refutes claims Williams team members are resistant to change but believes they haven’t had a view of what excellence is for a long time.

“I think the belief on (resistance) has changed as a result of everyone seeing the results they have achieved over the last few years,” Vowles said. “I’m not sure it’s so much in the way you’ve described anymore, as much it is just people that haven’t had necessarily their eyes opened to what excellence is.

“It has changed, and it’s very difficult when you remain within this tight-knit world of where you are you sometimes don’t have the vision of what it looks like, and I think that’s more what we’re having here.”

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Although Mercedes slipped from championship contention last season, Vowles says the impact of the lack of investment in Williams over a long period was clear from the moment he arrived and means it will take a long time to address deficits in personnel and resources.

Williams’s slide down the F1 pecking order has paralleled an inevitable focus on survival rather than excellence, Vowles says. Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images

“The team has, over the last 15 years, been through a tremendous amount of difficulty, financially and otherwise. It’s survived through all of that, but it is just survival compared to other organizations that have had finance. That’s the luxury I’ve had prior to joining here, and as a result of that you have these stark differences between where we are today and where we need to be in the future.

“The cost cap is a limiting factor on all of these things, simply because it puts us in a position where there’s a limited amount of (capital expenditure) and it won’t be enough to spend our way to success, as I would probably define it. So the pathway is to a certain extent a number of years required to get some of the core facilities to the level required to compete 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 is definitely under strain at the moment to ensure we are filling those voids as best we can. So the pathway is not one of months, but years.”