Vowles: Last season meant a lot to me

James Vowles, head of Williams, summarized the season and admitted that his team did not perform in the best way in the last race, but nevertheless managed to complete a strategically important task: maintain 7th place in the Constructors’ Championship. At the same time, he did not say a word about the future fate of Logan Sargent, although this is one of the main questions to which I would like to know the answer.

James Vowles: “The last race is over and it was very interesting. The results of the season finale determined the places that many teams and drivers achieved in the championship, and as we secured 7th place in the Constructors’ Championship, this result literally means the world for Williams.

After the finish, people’s emotions and gestures immediately made it clear how important this achievement was for everyone in our team. Our focus was mainly on the race, where almost everyone favored the two-stop strategy, with some rare exceptions.

And those who took the risk were not quite able to implement this plan, because at the end of the distance they began to encounter difficulties and lose ground. Yuki Tsunoda, our main rival, used exactly this tactic, and there was a moment during the course where he was even in the lead! And if a safety car appears on the track in this situation, this could well play into AlphaTauri’s hands.

But in the end, the work we put in in the early stages of the season, earning a certain number of points, paid off and we were able to achieve seventh place.

In Abu Dhabi the pace was completely different from what we wanted to achieve, and we had the most problems in the first part of the distance. This was due to the higher temperatures, as the race started while the sun was still setting, and the slightly softer Medium tires.

We just didn’t have the pace to challenge the others, although in the second and third stints, when we switched to the hard tires, the situation improved and we gradually started to make up ground.

The problem is not new, because all season we have realized that the tires of our car work under higher loads, and by next year we will have to solve this. I didn’t want our seventh place in the championship to depend on the actions of other teams, but that’s exactly what happened.

Now we are facing the winter off-season, where we will have to do everything we can to best prepare the new FW46 car, which is in full swing at the Grove base. For months all the team’s efforts have been focused on creating this chassis, and the performance of the future car and how it will perform in the pre-season testing and in the first phase of the season in Bahrain depend on how we work in winter.

Personally, I can’t wait for it anymore. Last season meant a lot to me because we were able to overcome many obstacles and show the world that we had laid all the necessary foundations to move forward. I think our seventh place in the Constructors’ Championship symbolizes exactly that for me.”