Williams team boss James Vowles has explained the need to “break” the Williams Formula 1 team in order to rebuild it.
Vowles joined from Mercedes at the start of the year and has been charged with restoring the squad to race winners.
It’s a long-term project with real progress not expected to be seen for three years.
That’s a result of the need for infrastructure investment, which has long lead times, and the need to make cultural changes within the team which Vowles expects to take “years”.
“From the beginning of the year to now, the team has done a great job on improving 1000 small areas,” Vowles told Speedcafe.
“But there’s a reason why the team is moving forward, it’s not a coincidence; they’re doing a tremendous job with what they’ve got facilities-wise.
“And a lot of low-hanging fruit’s been gazumped in that we’ve eaten till our bellies are full.
“The low-hanging fruit, it’s an easy thing,” he added.
“It’s low hanging in that it’s very easy to identify, I can tell you exactly what it is in detail, but it’s not easy to fix.
“It requires finance, which isn’t yet available to us, and it requires also a cultural change within the organisation.”
Williams remains one of the sport’s minnows, despite the odd starring performance (Alex Albon impressed over the course of the British Grand Prix weekend), and has remained entrenched at the back of the grid.
But Vowles suggests attitudes within the team, and its morale, are in contrast to its on-track performances.
He cites the current car as a prime example of the way the team’s cohesion, given there was no management software to track components from concept to design, manufacturer, assembly, and then onto the race car.
“They built a car without any of this infrastructure which just means that they work so closely together that they know what’s going on, there’s continuous discussion,” Vowles explained.
“That’s fine when you’re a team of people. That’s not when you’re 800 people. That becomes incredibly difficult. And yet they achieve it by working ungodly hours, really, and because they just don’t want to let the team down.
“What I’m trying to do is we’ll change that, and that will take time because people are used to that way of working.
“The first time you break it, and we do have to break it to achieve the next step of it, it might break pretty badly, but the results on the back end will be better.”
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