Before becoming the team principal of Williams, James Vowles worked under Toto Wolff at Mercedes and is grateful for the learnings he accumulated under the Austrian's watch.
Vowles was the head of strategy at Mercedes when he got the call from Williams to become their team boss, an offer he could not refuse, and as such, he joined them ahead of the 2023 Formula 1 season.
Under his guidance, Williams have shown great progress, and Vowles went on to secure Carlos Sainz's services, who had to make way for Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari.
Signing the Spaniard was a clear expression of intent from Vowles regarding his ambitions for Williams, who have had one of their best starts to an F1 campaign in 2025, as they are currently fifth in the constructors' standings.
Vowles shared the team representatives' press conference during the Monaco Grand Prix weekend with Wolff and was asked about what he learned from the Mercedes team boss.
"Toto just joked, 'all of it', but it's not a joke. It really is that," Vowles quipped, then added on a more serious note: "I had the pleasure of being… Toto, probably 10 years ago, 12 years ago, or so, he pulled me under his wing and just slowly allowed me to get more and more responsibility within the organization in a way that exposed me to the difficulties that he's going through daily, but in a safe and positive way.
"So it went similar to drivers—drivers into more technical bits of the business," he went on. "And there's no doubt about it, I would have sunk without his expertise and guidance by my side, and it's what he does really well, but he's bashful and doesn't talk about it too much.
"But it was a pleasure in that circumstance. There was a time that's not very well known, but we spent a week together in his place in Austria, and that was one of the best weeks of my life.
"So, there are some incredible things that you can do whilst you're under the guidance of Toto," Vowles concluded.
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