IN DEPTH: ‘I want to build another winning team’ – Pat Fry on why he joined Williams, and his ambitious targets
IN DEPTH: ‘I want to build another winning team’ – Pat Fry on why he joined Williams, and his ambitious targets
With a record of finishing last in the constructors\’ championship four times in five attempts between 2018 and 2022, Williams had become Formula 1’s sleeping giant. But they turned a corner in 2023 and for the first time since the heady days of 2014, when they were the third-best team, the British squad look like they have successfully course-corrected and are now building a foundation that in the future could put them in contention to add to their 16 World Championship titles.
That revitalisation has been headed by James Vowles, who is coming up to a year in the job as Team Principal and has presided over a season where they finished an impressive seventh in the constructors’ – their best performance since 2017.
Vowles is under no illusion that this is only the start of a long journey. But he can be pleased with the way Williams have pulled together, the staff showing the kind of grit, determination, passion and joy for racing that the team’s co-founder Sir Frank Williams instilled in the ranks when he started the team back in 1977.
As with every rebuild project, Vowles is currently balancing the need to look lon
