Dave Robson credits the arrival of James Vowles in Williams which has brought new life at the Grove-based F1 team.

Ever since the arrival of Vowles at Williams, the Grove-based F1 team has seen a refreshing change in the factory as per Head of Vehicle Performance Robson. After few years of struggles, the British outfit finally saw some financial injection via Dorilton Capital.

That changed the team’s course and eventually Vowles came into the picture after the interim team principal moved out. Ever since his arrival, things have started to move at the factory with praise from every corner about his style of working.

Vowles has been open about the state of affairs at Williams which seemed depleted and he had to bring back the force to the current standards. “James has brought a wealth of experience and knowledge and also, I think, a whole new approach which is really starting to spread around the factory,” said Robson.

“I think that’s probably  gone hand in hand with Alex maturing and becoming quite calm and consistent, level-headed and James brings something similar. He obviously also brings clear knowledge of, as we talked about, what Andrew and his colleagues have got at MGP. And so it really feels like we’ve now got a clear plan for the next few years.

“That’s very much rooted in  recent top-level experience and now we’ve just going to put that into action but in the short term, yeah, there’s the whole atmosphere is new and  it’s refreshed. It’s helped by some of the on-track results but I think  that whole thing is a little bit chicken and egg, and James has definitely played his part in that,” summed up Rosbon.

Vowles’ former Mercedes colleague Andrew Shovlin has kind words for him too. “All my good memories from races… I was sat next to James on the pit wall for 20 years or whatever it was,” he said. “He’s left us with a really impressive strategy group. So Rosie [Wait] is running that now and that’s working very well, but partly because James was trying to put the group in place that could follow him.

“But his ambitions were always more than just doing the strategy. But it’s great to see him enjoying the role at Williams and having a positive effect there because we knew that he would be a loss to our team. But yeah, nice that he’s enjoying success.”

Here’s Alexander Albon being slow in Sector 2