Williams Formula 1 boss James Vowles has admitted that he is using McLaren’s progress as an “aspiration” as he plots his team’s path back to the front in Formula 1.
McLaren’s remarkable turnaround over the last 18 months has seen the team begin last season struggling to accrue points to now being in championship contention.
Prior to achieving two victories and numerous podiums this season, McLaren had obtained a single win between 2013 and 2022 as it underdelivered on expectations.
Likewise, with an elongated win drought dating back to 2012, Williams stands as a sleeping giant in F1 that Vowles is striving to return to the sharp end down the line.
But while McLaren spent its wilderness period in amongst the midfield, the Grove-based squad has tended to be positioned towards the rear during recent campaigns.
Nevertheless, Vowles, who has hired close to 250 people at Williams since last term, has acknowledged McLaren’s unprecedented revival has shown what is possible.
“I think my view of the world is this. Our journey is different to McLaren in many regards, but has similarities to what you’re pointing out,” he told Motorsport Week.
“McLaren was about five to eight years for turning it around and I’ve said it here many, many times. What we have is probably a bigger problem than McLaren in many regards.
“But you already have a complete template for what a team took to get itself back into winning ways. So in that regard, yes.
“And with British, with heritage, all those regards, absolutely yes. But it’s a different set of problems to what we have there.
“I have the joy of having Pat [Fry, Chief Technical Officer], who’s been at both, who can absolutely share what’s there.
“And Zak [Brown, McLaren CEO] and myself have a really close relationship and we talk about it pretty openly.
“In fact, before coming here I was in Zak’s office just chatting through things because of similarities.”
However, Vowles has contended that it would be wrong to think that replicating McLaren’s exact blueprint is the model that Williams must replicate to claim success.
The ex-Mercedes Strategy Director suspects that McLaren will encounter hitches with expansion at its Woking headquarters that won’t prove a hindrance to Williams.
“But the reason why I don’t compare to it is that they’re their own entities, they have their own history, their own shaping behind it,” he continued.
“And their own set of problems, which they still have some of them today.
“I have land, they don’t have land. They have a lovely-looking facility, but you don’t really want your water claims locked into the bottom of the basement.
“And so what I mean by that is they have different problems and they will come across different problems to me in the future.
“I have plenty of space. I have infrastructure that’s now ageing that absolutely needs to be replaced.
“So how about this? It’s an aspiration. I treat them as that.
“Because you look at a team that was suffering for many years, that turned it around and nailed the front, and I think you’d all agree around the table.
“If I swept you in Bahrain in 2023 and said to you, ‘McLaren’s going to be 1-2 next year, and by the way, the team to beat’, you would laugh me out of the room.
“Sensibly so, and yet they’re there. So it’s an aspiration, and that’s about how I treat them.”
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