What would be the timeline for Williams' return to the midfield? Former Mercedes director James Vowles reveals key details

Williams boss and Mercedes former director James Vowles reveals that it is going to take multiple years before the team becomes a strong midfield contender. The team has been on a journey of finding its way again and multiple years of under-investment meant it has fallen behind significantly. In a bid to try and catch up, the team has continued work on a significant overhaul.

Talking to Speedcafe, Vowles admitted that he was aware of the gravity of the situation that faced the team. As a reflection of the ground reality for Williams, Vowles revealed that only to get the infrastructure in place and get things up and running is going to take around 18 months if he started now. He said,

“The car we have here is a reflection of the work of the winter, the work of last year, not a reflection of the steps that we need to move forward with."

"I don’t think my timeline has changed, but to completely lay it out, it’s not in one year or two years that I think we’re going to put ourselves onto a track where we’re really properly into the midfield, it’s multiple years. Because simply the infrastructure alone, just building that, will be 18 months from today if we broke ground now.”

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Williams have closed the gap to the front by one second

Even though Williams had a somewhat subpar weekend in Barcelona, Vowles was quite impressed as he revealed that the team was now 1.5 seconds behind Red Bull. In 2022, the gap to the front was 2.5 seconds and hence a second has been reduced in the last year. Talking to Speedcafe, he said,

“The characteristics of the circuit, high downforce, and with a high-speed corner content, was never going to suit the package we had. So it was a difficult weekend but that wasn’t a surprise."

"If you look at last year, I think there was about a two-and-a-half-second gap, and we’ve got it down to a second and a half. And I think actually being ahead of a few teams was better than I expected, based on the performance in qualifying.”

In Vowles, Williams has the right man that could guide the team forward and in the right direction. Coming from Mercedes and having the experience to work with pristine talents like Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, Vowles knows what is needed to produce strong results and will truly push the team forward.