James Vowles says Williams has proved it is “a different team” after 2025 turnaround

In the space of twelve months, Williams have gone from clinging to the back of the pack to stalking the giants. The numbers alone tell a story – from 17 points and ninth in 2024 to 137 points and fifth in 2025, their best finish since 2017 – but for James Vowles, the real proof of transformation is less about the standings and more about what is happening behind the garage doors in Grove.

The team principal, now three seasons into the job, was careful all year not to over‑promise. Williams openly sacrificed development of the FW47 to attack the looming 2026 rules revolution. And yet, as the dust settled on Abu Dhabi, the scorecard showed three podiums for Carlos Sainz and a 120‑point swing in the constructors’ championship, 45 points clear of their midfield pursuers.

"It exceeds our expectations. We wanted to make a step forward from where we were.

— James Vowles, in a Williams season review video quoted by RaceFans

"We wanted to make sure that we demonstrated to the world we’re a different team to where we have been and that we’ll make strides forward, but never losing focus on our future, i.e. 2026 and beyond. This year, to still hold on to that fifth place, and more than that have three podiums to our name and huge points score, that exceeds our expectations."

— James Vowles, in a Williams season review video quoted by RaceFans and GPblog

That “different team” isn’t just faster; it’s fundamentally re‑wired. For years, Williams was the cautionary tale of a grandee stuck in the past, infamously tracking tens of thousands of parts on a single Excel sheet. In 2025, Vowles could finally point to evidence that the rebuild is taking hold.

Speaking to Motorsport.com, he highlighted how a major floor and sidepod package, originally scheduled for Zandvoort, was pulled forward to Spa without imploding the organisation. The team took the risk of bringing only three sets of parts into a wet sprint weekend – and still executed cleanly, with Alex Albon scoring vital points.

"One of the biggest fixes we’ve been putting in place for the last 24 months is making sure we can deliver from concept to track as quickly as possible at the right cost level… We don’t use Excel spreadsheets anymore. We’re now in a situation of using modern-day ERP and PLM tools to design and build the car."

— James Vowles, speaking to Motorsport.com

That efficiency is why the FW47 could punch above its development weight. Vowles told Robb Report that “we didn’t really put a lot of work into this year’s car”, instead pouring resources into systems, structures and the 2026 project. The 2025 gains, in his view, are the by‑product of finally getting the basics right – the car launched on time, with spares in hand, and a steady drumbeat of updates rather than desperate one‑offs.

But if the spreadsheets and pit‑wall processes are the skeleton of this new Williams, the heartbeat is the culture change. You can feel it in the garage: the whine of impact guns between sessions, engineers huddled over data traces, and two drivers pushing each other without tearing the team apart.

Alex Albon, who carried Williams through the lean years, says the atmosphere is almost unrecognisable from the day he walked into Grove.

"Truthfully, the whole attitude this year has shifted… The culture and the energy is addictive… There’s been a huge shift in terms of open-mindedness, willingness to experiment in general, and this hunger to move and be a top team. That’s very much down to James and the key individuals within the team."

— Alex Albon, speaking to Motorsport Week

The arrival of Sainz – and with him those podiums in Azerbaijan, Qatar and the Austin sprint – underlined that this is no longer a refuge for pay drivers or prospects with nowhere else to go. As Vowles put it in his Robb Report interview, landing a proven race winner “showed that we are a serious entity… here to make a stance, that we are fighting for wins”.

Yet Vowles is still wary of calling 2025 a completed turnaround. “I don’t think we’ve turned around. I think we’re gently moving the right way,” he told Motorsport.com, pointing out that no department at Williams is operating at true championship level – not yet. His winter message to fans on the team’s own site struck the same note: not a dramatic overnight transformation, but a “deliberate and steady” climb.

That’s the tension running through Williams’ story right now. On Sundays in 2025 they raced like the class of the midfield – threading through DRS trains, timing pit windows to perfection, and seizing chaos for big scores. But everything, from the early switch of wind‑tunnel focus to the cultural reset in Grove, is pointed at 2026 and beyond.

When the lights went out on this season, Williams had done more than bank points. They had persuaded a sceptical paddock – and themselves – that the sleeping giant is actually waking up. The question now is whether this “different team” is just the best of the rest, or the opening chapter of a return to title‑contending relevance when Formula 1’s rulebook is torn up again.