Vowles sees big plus: 'Achieved this in such a short time'

Vowles to be team boss at Williams since 2023

James Vowles took over as team boss at Williams in 2023 after 12 years of service with the Mercedes team. Williams has had a mixed season so far. At one end, Alexander Albon excelled with some strong qualifying and racing, but at the other end of the garage, debutant Logan Sargeant's performance is still somewhat disappointing. The team managed to score 11 points until the summer break, all collected by Albon.

Looking back on the first half of the season, team boss Vowles sees mostly positives. "We have already in the short period of time that I've been here, shown the world that we are able to put performance on the car and we are able to deliver results and take the points that have been available to us at nearly all the events. That's a positive to me. It's a different situation to where we were just twelve months ago. We were in the back and there wasn't really a tremendous amount of what we could do to fight for points." Vowles goes on to say that a change in mentality and culture is underway within the team as a result.

'Focus of Williams is on 2024, 2025 and 2026'

The former Mercedes strategist also looks ahead to the remaining races this season and the years that follow. Vowles is aware that many teams will bring updates after the summer break, but he indicates that Williams is already shifting its focus to 2024, 2025 and 2026. "That will have a compromize on later this year. We know that. We are tight on points and just ahead of Haas. And it's going to be difficult to hold on to that. What I can promise, is that we are going to every weekend making sure we try and optimize it to the best of our ability, irrespective where the focus of the organisation is," Vowles said.