17/01/2023
NEWS STORY
James Vowles insists that his switch to Williams should in no way be seen as the Grove outfit becoming Mercedes 'junior' team.
While the appointment of the Mercedes chief strategist as team principal of the Grove outfit has been widely welcomed, as it is seen as a signal that owners Dorilton Capital actually have plans for the 9-time constructors' champions as opposed to merely seeking to hang on to their franchise, some fear Williams could become the German manufacturer's B-team.
Mercedes boss, Toto Wolff has strong ties to Williams, having bought into the Grove outfit in 2009 and joined its board of directors, despite leaving to take control of the Silver Arrows in January 2013 he retained a stake until 2016.
As ever, politics plays a key role in the sport and at a time its owners and its governing body appear to be at loggerheads, a team having additional support from a 'rival' outfit is highly beneficial when negotiations are taking place.
Nonetheless, Vowles insists that Williams will not become Mercedes 'junior' outfit.
"I wouldn't consider it a mini-Mercedes," he says. "Williams is an incredibly independent team in its own right, which has formed its own history, its own heritage.
"Williams is an entirely independent organisation," he adds, "and furthermore, it's one that my success is subject and dependent on me doing a good job there, and that has to be independent of Mercedes.
"It doesn't mean that Mercedes and ourselves won't have collaboration in some form or another," he admits, "there was collaboration before I joined, but I have to do what is best for Williams from here onwards."
As if to ram home the point, he relates the story of a previous encounter with MI6, the UK's intelligence service.
"An interesting analogy I bring to the party is that I met with MI6 about ten years ago, and we described all the techniques that we do within Formula 1, and many of them mirror, but the one that doesn't mirror is this one, the concept of double agents.
"The second, just now fundamentally, that you put a crisp Williams shirt on, that's where you are, that's where your loyalty is, and that's where my success and the team's success will come from.
"There's no mini-Mercedes or B-team, or any of that notion. This is about me standing on my own two legs and making a success with an organisation around me."
Sadly, the downward spiral of the Grove outfit has been ongoing for some time, and while the heady days of title wins is a couple of decades ago, as recently as 2015 the Grove outfit was able to battle for 'best of the rest'.
Asked where he believes the problem lies, Vowles admits: "It's hard to answer, simply because I haven't set foot inside and my contact has been fairly limited.
"What will definitely be wrong is, when you're hurting and you've been punished and pushed down as an organisation because you're suffering, that doesn't get any better year on year unless you get a change to what's going on, a change to the culture, to the methods and systems.
"I suspect a lot of it was that… if we go back a few years, we didn't have the strength that is Dorilton. Dorilton really want and will invest the correct amount to make this a performing team, and I don't think it's fair to say that was the case a few years ago, and the impact of them will take a while to properly kick in."