Williams team principal James Vowles backed to emulate Mercedes role by former F1 driver

Former Formula 1 driver Anthony Davidson has tipped James Vowles to succeed in his new role as Williams' team principal.

Williams parted ways with Jost Capito at the end of 2022 and replaced him with Vowles, who previously worked with Mercedes as their race strategist. He comes with a lot of motorsports experience, having worked as an engineer at the British American Racing and Honda Racing F1 teams, and as a race strategist at Brawn GP.

Former British racing driver Davidson, who raced in F1 for Minardi and Super Aguri, and has been a test or reserve driver for the British American Racing, Honda, and Brawn GP teams, has tipped Vowles to do well with Williams.

Speaking on Sky Sports, he said:

"I think James Vowles has always been an ambitious character. I think his natural career progression had came to an end at Mercedes, unless Toto steps down. Which Toto said, 'Yeah he's going to take my job. That's the only place for him to go if he wants even more from this team.'"

He added:

"James Vowles is used to (being) chief strategist, he built a team around him. For the last couple of seasons, he wasn't actually the guy on the pit wall. He had built the team up, so he's used to recruiting people and using that strategic brain that he has, I just hope he can do the same thing at Williams, but as a whole.

"I'm excited for him, I think it's a new challenge and I think he can build himself up to become a good Team Principal in the future."

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Williams boss James Vowles outlines 'number one' pressing concern ahead of 2023 season opener

Williams F1 team principal James Vowles has confirmed that hiring a new technical director is the team's 'number one' prerogative heading into the 2023 F1 season.

F. X. Demaison left his role as the team's technical director at the end of the 2022 campaign and Vowles is keen to fill the void left by the Frenchman to bring more structure to the team.

Speaking at a press conference during F1 pre-season testing in Bahrain, he said:

"I think the primary thing is this – We don’t have the structure in place technically, obviously, as a result of the changes that were made. Number one is let’s put in place a proper set of structures, in terms of a technical director and a head of aero – that’s number one because clearly an organisation needs those to move forward."