May 22 (GMM) James Vowles is not sure whether Ferrari’s decision to sign Lewis Hamilton was a “mistake”.
Ultimately, it worked out well for Vowles, who heads the Williams team that snapped up the driver seven time world champion unseated – Carlos Sainz.
El Mundo Deportivo newspaper told Vowles that if Ferrari really did make a mistake with Hamilton, who has struggled whilst wearing red so far, it was a “good mistake” for Williams.
“Exactly,” Vowles agreed.
But does Vowles really think Ferrari may now be regretting not still having Sainz, 30, alongside Charles Leclerc?
“I can’t really tell you that or not,” the Briton answered diplomatically.
“I mean, they had their reasons for making their decisions. Lewis is still a seven time world champion. He still brings incredible knowledge.
“And as much as everyone talks about Lewis, he has pushed Charles at times. Ferrari did what they had to do for themselves and created an opportunity for me to be able to work with Carlos.”
Williams and Sainz, however, have had their ups and downs so far, with the Spaniard struggling to acclimatise to a very different car and team, and openly disagreeing with some recent strategic calls.
At Imola, he admitted he almost ignored a team order to pit. “I was close to not coming in,” Sainz told DAZN, “because it seemed too early in the race, and that lap looked like we had opportunities to maybe overtake someone.
“I’m a team man. I follow orders. If the team has asked me to stop, I have to obey,” he added.
“But I had the feeling that it wasn’t the right thing to do, and that turned out to be the case.”
Sainz has also expressed public frustration with Williams’ decision to abandon development of its reasonably competitive 2025 car in order to focus completely on 2026.
“It could be that we’ll add new parts to the car again after the summer break,” Vowles now tells Auto Motor und Sport. “But they won’t be tested in the wind tunnel. We need the permitted test runs for 2026.”
But despite that, Vowles admits that producing a winning car for next season is “too optimistic” a goal for Williams.
“We have too many things that aren’t in place to be able to build a winning car for 2026,” he admitted. “Just too many.
“Mercedes, McLaren, Red Bull, and Ferrari have much better structured systems than we do right now, but we’re on track to catch up. But they won’t be online by 2026, maybe not even by 2027. So, 2028 is the first time I see those systems being fully operational.”
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