Do I regret joining Williams? No – I was too comfortable at Mercedes’

There were more than a few eyebrows raised in January when James Vowles, a man who had been at Brackley for 22 years, playing a key role in nine constructors’ championships and more than 120 race victories, announced he was moving from Mercedes to Williams.

Vowles, after all, had been heavily tipped to take over from Toto Wolff as Mercedes team principal at some point. That was the position for which he was being groomed. The 43 year-old is honest enough to admit he was hoping for that outcome himself.

Instead, two months on, he finds himself sitting in a comparatively deserted motorhome, at the very far end of the Melbourne paddock (teams are allocated their paddock homes on the basis of their finish position the previous season), discussing his plans to resurrect a team which amassed a grand total of eight points last year.

Any regrets? “Far from it,” he says. “I was doing my best to forge my own path at Mercedes. And Toto was doing his best to give me my own responsibilities, and allow me to grow into his area of responsibility as well. And we had very honest chats all the way through.

But what became apparent is that he doesn't have any intention of moving on, at least in the short term. And the conclusion I came to is…I was getting too comfortable.”

Too comfortable? “I like to challenge myself,” he adds. “And I found I just wasn't any more. And for me, I wasn't in a situation in my life where I wanted to accept several more years without properly challenging myself. That is when the opportunity came up at Williams. And well, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime.”

That is one way of putting it. Another would be that Vowles has taken a poisoned chalice.

Williams would once have been among the favourites for Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix. They took victory in the first F1 race ever held at Albert Park in 1996; Damon Hill triumphing in the FW18 en route to the title. They have not won a race here since. They have not won anywhere since 2012 when Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado won the Spanish Grand Prix completely out of the blue.

The proud independent team, famously run by Sir Frank Williams from a phone box in Reading at one point after the factory line was disconnected, have sunk into obscurity; outgunned, outspent, and outmanoeuvred in the manufacturer era.

Vowles, though, sees only potential. In Dorilton Capital, a New York-based, British-run private investment firm who bought the team from the Williams family in 2020, before Frank's death in 2021, they have backers with deeper pockets than many realise. Just as importantly, they still have the Williams name.

Vowles is adamant that while all formal ties to the family have ended, the soul of the outfit started up by Williams and Patrick Head endures.

“Do you know I’d never actually been to Grove prior to this year,” he confesses. “I haven’t been to most teams’ factories. You’re not really welcome in factories when you work for a rival team. But I know Frank's DNA is still very much there.

When you walk around the factory, and you see all the pictures from the glory days. And you speak to a lot of the workforce. A lot of them will tell you the reason they're there is because it is such an incredible team. It attracts them more than Ferrari or Red Bull. And I get it completely now.”

Vowles says he believes Williams can win championships again. But it will not be in the short- or even the medium-term. And it will require regulation change to happen.

'The history of Williams is so powerful'

He talks about the cost cap; about how it is stacked in favour of the big teams who already had the infrastructure in place when it was introduced. “I know when I had my other hat on, my Mercedes hat, the whole reason we agreed to the cap was because we knew the hundreds of millions we had spent would be protected,” he says.

For now, it is about incremental steps, pushing for change, taking the small wins when they come - like Alex Albon making it into Q3 on Saturday. Vowles says he feels “energised”.

Before he gets up, I ask whether he has had any contact with Claire Williams, Frank’s daughter, who ran the team from 2013 to 2020. “Absolutely,” he says. “She sent me a lovely, heartfelt message when I got the job. That was very important to me. The history of Williams is so powerful. Far more powerful for me certainly than I was used to at Mercedes.

“Don’t get me wrong, Mercedes is an incredible organisation, but that team’s history is relatively recent. At Williams, I look at Damon’s car, next to Jacques’ [Villeneuve] car, next to [Alain] Prost’s car, next to Ayrton [Senna]’s car. It’s difficult to describe the emotional feeling you get from that. I love it.”