First Williams season better than what Vowles was hoping for

Vowles took over the hot seat at Williams, a team that has been on the decline for many years now, old owners (The Williams family) selling, new owners coming in, Team Principals coming and going, Technical Directors joining and leaving with no one being able to stop the team's waning.

The latest change saw Vowles join the Grove outfit at the start of the 2023 season, who in turn hired Pat Fry from Alpine to head the technical department.

Addressing the media, Vowles reflected on his first season as an F1 boss, he said: "What I like about the season is McLaren have shown you how they can go from the back to the front, AlphaTauri have shown you how you can develop the car and move forward.

"We have to a certain extent as well; we were a team that wasn’t really scoring points to a team that from the August break onwards has been in and around the points the whole time.

"so I quite like that about this regulation set that you’re getting teams moving up and down," referring to current regulations with a $140-Million cost cap and a sliding scale for aero testing based on the team's finishing position in the Constructors' Championship.

Vowles has expressed his shock in the state he found Williams when he joined earlier in 2023, but seemed positive at the end of his first season as their boss, the teams' dynamic of the 2023 F1 season giving him reason to be optimistic about his own team.

"I think it’s better than what I was hoping for," he said of his maiden year at Grove speaking alongside fellow team bossed.

"You have to remember I’m sitting on a sofa alongside people where… We were fighting McLaren in Bahrain and they’re fighting for podiums and wins. We have the top [three] in the championship all lined up next to me and that’s the aspiration, to get somewhere there.

"The reality behind it is that there are teams this year, McLaren’s one of them, AlphaTauri is another one of them, that are putting huge performance on the car and starting to fight with the giants. Our aspirations are very clearly to keep moving forward in the way that we have.

"Now, Williams has gone from not scoring points to scoring at near enough most events, or having the ability to score, so that’s a very different circumstance to where we were 12 months ago.

"But, as I said, our aspiration is to keep moving up the grid, beyond where we are now. And that’s going to take a lot more effort from where we are," Vowles concluded.

Williams finished their first season under Vowles' watch, seventh in the Constructors' Championship with 28 points, a whopping 98 points behind Alpine in sixth.

The team will retain Alex Abon and Logan Sargeant for the 2024 F1 season.