"Williams never recovered on the aero side from the loss of Adrian Newey": F1 pundit speculates on what led to failure of Williams-BMW 

F1 pundit Karun Chandhok has said that Williams haven't recovered since losing aero wizard Adrian Newey at the end of the 1996 season.

Newey, who's the CTO of world champions Red Bull, was with the Grove-based outfit from 1991 to 1996 and led them to four Constructor's Championships, from 1992 to 1994 and 1996. However, he left them after internal tensions with then-co-founder Patrick Head.

On The Race podcast, Karun Chandhok pointed out that the Williams-BMW relationship was as much a failure on the engine side as it was on the aero side. The former F1 driver pointed out that having two separate entities did not play a role in the downturn of the relationship with BMW:

"I don't think so. I think it could have been fine. We saw with McLaren-Mercedes. They were unbelievably competitive in 2005, and they were two separate entities. I think the bigger thing is Williams never recovered on the aero side from the loss of Adrian Newey.

"If you had a Newey-designed Williams with a BMW engine, that whole era of Formula 1 would have looked very different. I don't think we would have seen a Schumacher-Ferrari era. We could have arguably seen a Montoya- Williams- BMW- Newey era."

---

Williams F1 team principal dishes on infrastructure side of team

James Vowles said that the Grove-based outfit had done well before he joined at the start of the 2023 season and was driven by passion.

Speaking with Motorsport.com, Vowles said that he's optimistic about the infrastructure side of the team:

“I like it. And here's why I like it. This team has done incredibly well before I joined, and even when I've been here, because it's driven by passion.

"It's a true racing team. Any time I keep looking at our facilities, structures, infrastructure, methods, and realise how far behind we are, I'm only encouraged by it."

He added:

"We're here where we are today, and I can't wait until we get a lot of it fixed because we'll be in a much better place. And in a short space of time too, because there's quite a bit, still, of low-hanging fruit left over that we can pick up."

It will be fascinating to see if Williams can continue to make progress and get in the necessary cash to develop the factory and have better infrastructure for the future under James Vowles.