Vowles on Mercedes departure: 'Growth opportunities limited'

James Vowles told the High Performance Podcast more about his decision to leave Mercedes at the beginning of January 2023 for a role as team principal at Williams, which is in the rear in Formula 1. Vowles wanted to continue developing and at Mercedes he was increasingly unable to do so.

At Mercedes, his work felt completed, Vowles said. At 'The Silver Arrows', he served as Motorsport Strategy Director. "So one of the things I've been focused on at Mercedes is, I knew my long term wasn't going to be doing strategy for the rest of my life. Loved it a bit. It's a brilliant job. But for many years, built up a really strong team behind the scenes. And in fact, from around ’21 onwards, the hard work was done by them."

Wolff as a teacher

Vowles did still take the final decisions, but the team was structured so well that his own role was becoming smaller and smaller. Meanwhile, in the background, Vowles was learning more and more from team principal Toto Wolff. "Toto was kind enough with his time to give me as much of his experience as he could. He knew where he was forming me towards. That doesn't mean I had a job within Mercedes to be a team principal there, but he provided me his time and his knowledge and experience and provided me more and more responsibilities."

The range of tasks for Vowles - who wanted to keep developing - was growing. "If there's an opportunity, I'll grab it and I'll take it up at the end at the cost of time and sleep and all the other things. So that started happening." The Briton became more concerned with simulator drivers, talents from the junior programme and also the budget cap.

Williams reports

Vowles didn't think Williams would knock on the door after Jost Captio's departure, but he was quick off the mark. He did not want to pass up the opportunity at Grove, even if it meant leaving Mercedes behind. "Toto is incredible at what he does. No doubt about it. And has many, many more years. He's as the best, one of the best team principals in the pit lane. And so it got to a point where I had to make a decision for my life, not for Mercedes life. And that decision came when I very swiftly realized that actually, I think the growth opportunities I have, the growth learning I have, I enjoyed learning tremendously."

"And that was slowing down in Mercedes," he continued. "I can go into a completely different level by going elsewhere. And so I had honest conversations with Toto across that year period. It wasn't a big surprise to him in the winter. And it's why also he was accepting of the fact that he let me move on. He wanted me to move on as well as a result of it."

Whether he got any particular advice from his mentor? "I think he said, don't sh*t. No, other than that, he knows that I've been forming for this for quite a while. So there was little he could provide me above it. But even today, and not just him, I would say Fred [Vasseur] and Otmar [Szafnauer] before we left and a few others were guiding voices, where I can happily call them, even though they're adversaries and not ask for advice, but they'll give me guidance."