James Vowles on being a racing driver

James Vowles took over the reins of the Williams team a year and a half ago, having previously spent a long time at Mercedes as chief strategist. But not everyone knows that he has been racing until recently, albeit at a semi-amateur level, and he is confident that the skills he has acquired on the circuits will help him in his job.

“I firmly believe that the people who work in Formula 1 are some of the smartest,” James said in an interview with the championship’s official website. – No matter who we are talking about, they can be engineers, marketers, economists – they are all some of the best professionals in their field.

But there are also failed racers, and I probably fall more into this category! I always knew that I started motorsport too late, but at an amateur level I competed in karting, took part in touring car races and drove sports prototypes of the ‘Leman’ class. At the same time, I always had support from people who had financial resources, because at that time I was at a stage in my career where it was necessary.

The results were normal, which is the best way to describe them. I always drove too carefully, because the cars were not mine and I didn’t want to crash them. But I always told myself that if I manage to achieve sufficient financial stability, I will probably invest in motorsports as well.
In touring I became champion in my class, which is a good result and a good addition to my track record. Then I got the chance to try racing in the GT4 and GT3 categories – this was in 2021, 2022 and a little bit in 2023. If you win in these classes, it is already serious. But it requires serious investment. Overall, I liked it.

There were several factory teams that wanted to work with me; I could share with them the experience that I had gained in Formula 1 that others didn’t have. I understood the engineering, telemetry and racing tactics to a certain extent.

In short, I would leave work, put on my race suit, drive six laps around the Silverstone circuit to check the car was OK, then come back, put the suit back on and go back to work.

I tried to combine these two activities, although it was not easy. After all, it was necessary to compete with people who do nothing but race such cars all year round. But I like being in difficult situations…

Let’s start with the fact that in the Asian Le Mans series, there are cars of three different classes on the track at the same time, including LMP3 and LPM2. And I drove the slowest car of these three categories. Secondly, the races also take place at night. Thirdly, you have to be able to give up your seat behind the wheel to your crew member within twelve seconds, and before that I had no such experience at all.

Overall I can say that everything went well…”

At the recent Goodwood Festival of Speed, Williams was represented not only by Alex Albon and Logan Sargent, but also by James Vowles, who drove the FW08, the car in which Keke Rosberg won the 1982 championship.

“My dream came true, because this was something I had always dreamed of since I started working in Formula 1,” Vowles recalls fondly. “I had the opportunity not only to drive on the hillclimb circuit, but also to represent the Williams team. When they asked me, I didn’t think twice about it!”

I really liked this experience, because I not only had to climb the hill, but also come back, and on the way I waved hello to the marshals and the audience, and there were tens of thousands of spectators there – where else can you get such an impression?!..”

James Vowles isn’t the only team boss who can drive race cars: Toto Wolff, Christian Horner and Zac Brown have also been involved in motorsport, and the McLaren Racing CEO continues to do so by racing historic cars.

When asked about a possible competition between the two, James replied: “I would love to be involved – I think it would be very interesting! As you can imagine, Toto and I have had the chance to race against each other more than once, and it was fun! Lewis Hamilton was once with us in Austin. I can’t show you the video, but you can hear him laughing.

Overall these would be very enjoyable and competitive races, although it is unlikely that there would be any cars with all four wheels afterwards!…”