Following Jost Capito’s resignation in December 2022, James Vowles was named the new manager of Williams in January. On February 20, he is scheduled to begin working with the group. Before leaving the pit wall and going into team management with Toto Wolff, Vowles was a crucial member of Mercedes’ strategy staff.
In addition to the strategy, Toto Wolff explained, “James has been handling driver contracts, reserve driver contracts, and a plethora of other political matters with me. In the previous year, we agreed that he would pass over the keys to a new team of strategists.”
And, since July, James Vowles has left the pit wall and stopped actively meddling in the selection of race weekends.
Toto Wolff said he was happy to see Vowles get the Williams post. This is because he has a personal attachment to the brand and was formerly its executive director.
“Going to Williams, a team that is dear to my heart and that I will always treasure, is obviously great, and having an aspiring partner at Williams, someone who is very logical and rational while also having a lot of Formula 1 experience, is an overall benefit for both Williams and Mercedes,” Toto Wolff said.
Toto Wolff is sure that Vowles is qualified for his new post despite the fact that the function of Team Principal also encompasses the business and political components of the sport and Vowles comes from an engineering background.
According to Toto Wolff, “Being a Team Principal, is such a rare role because you need to have the commercial knowledge, the political viewpoints, and not be tricked by what you’ve been told by someone in the scientific or engineering sector.”
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Following Jost Capito’s departure in December 2022, it was revealed in January that Vowles would quit Mercedes after nearly 20 years to assume the open team-boss position at Williams.
Following Andrea Stella (McLaren), Frederic Vasseur (Ferrari), and Alessandro Bravi (Alfa Romeo), Vowles is one of four new team managers for the 2023 season. He will begin in his new position on February 20, just in time for preseason testing and the first race, which will take place in Bahrain on March 5.
Toto Wolff is certain that his former strategy head is qualified for the position given the technical, engineering, political, and business issues team commanders must manage.
“James checks a lot of those boxes, and he participated in a lot of the commercial initiatives we’ve engaged in over the last four years. Before the final action was taken, he approached me and asked, “What do you think about it?” Usually, our opinions were pretty similar.” Toto Wolff threw in
