Alex Albon has praised Williams boss James Vowles for transforming the Formula 1 team’s culture and for lifting a lingering “doom and gloom”.
The 46-year-old joined the Grove-based squad ahead of the 2023 season, with the team amid perhaps the lowest ebb of its recent history.
Vowles has steadied the ship, and with Albon leading the line in its driver rosters, Williams has shown signs of slow but sure progress.
And 2025 has most certainly been its headiest season in a long while, currently lying in fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship.
With Albon and Carlos Sainz managing to earn top 10 finishes in all but four of the 14 rounds, it currently has 70 points, more than in the last three seasons combined.
Albon is in no doubt that Vowles’ presence has ensured a complete change in mentality at the team from his first season there in 2021.
“The biggest thing is the culture of the team,” the Anglo-Thai driver told RacingNews365.
“You walk into Grove, it looks the same, but you go inside and it feels different.
“So, when I think about the biggest difference, it’s purely when I remember my first time at Williams.
“Going to the factory, no one was very confident, people were talking badly about themselves, which is never a good sign.
“Possibly a bit stuck in their old ways, and just a bit doom and gloom, really.”
Albon celebrates the ‘freedom’ and lack of ego at Williams
Albon explained that Vowles’ methodical approach to running the team has enabled and encouraged a feeling of “openness” within the ranks at Grove.
“So you get this feeling, he talks about this a lot, of breaking everything down and seeing how it builds back up,” he added.
“And so there’s a freedom and a kind of an openness to everything that we go about our racing, there’s no ego involved.
“And the feedback and the work that we do as drivers really gets taken on. And there’s just this energy to be better.
“And so I think that culture definitely wasn’t there when I first joined. And now it’s great because you have, I won’t call it a young team, but it’s been rejuvenated in terms of it’s just, it’s energy, it’s a really exciting place to be.”
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