EXCLUSIVE: James Vowles interview: ‘The day I’m happy with Williams F1 progress, hit me’

James Vowles sits down with Mirror Sport two years into his Williams Formula 1 project to discuss how his task of awakening the sport’s sleeping giants is going

James Vowles wants to turn struggling Williams into a Formula 1 force again(Getty Images)

By

 Daniel Moxon

20:30, 8 Feb 2025

In the rapid, ever-moving world of Formula 1, satisfaction with one’s situation can swiftly lead to stagnation.

Or, as Williams team principal James Vowles rather succinctly puts it: “The day I’m happy, hit me – because I shouldn’t be.”

The former Mercedes strategy guru is about to begin his third season in charge of F1’s sleeping giants. Williams’ history is rich but the most recent of their 16 title successes came in 1997, when Jacques Villeneuve became champion for the first and only time, and years of mismanagement has seen them become bottom-feeders.

Vowles, 45, was presented with a team which has facilities 20 years out of date and a culture of mediocrity and tasked with getting them firing again. A seventh-placed finish in his first season suggested immediate progress but they slipped back to ninth last year as SEVENTEEN major crashes took their toll.

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“It’s a number that I haven’t seen anything close to that ever in my career,” Vowles admits. “It’s cost us and it’s cost us heavily. Every time we move forward, we’re actually looking backwards trying to repair things. It’s the worst thing you could ever hope for.”

Eloquent and well-spoken, Vowles is a man careful with his words. Keen not to paint a picture too disastrous, his summary of the 2024 campaign is that it was “more tricky than expected”.

He follows that up with an explanation several minutes long of all the off-track progress that has been made, such as 250 new hires, a renewed desire to succeed among staff and a commercial boom. The latter has been aided by the signing of Carlos Sainz, who will race alongside British-Thai driver Alex Albon next year.

This Logan Sargeant crash at Zandvoort in August was one of 17 major shunts involving Williams cars this year(Anadolu via Getty Images)

The arrival of the Spaniard, a four-time F1 race winner, is a coup for a team of Williams’ current stature. And the millions in sponsorship money Sainz brings with him from Ferrari, most notably through banking giants Santander, is a welcome bonus.