Since taking over as team principal at Williams in February 2023, Bolles has frequently spoken out about the team’s major deficiencies, both in terms of process and infrastructure.
He was successful in securing additional capital investment funding to improve Grove’s on-site facilities and equipment, and was successful in securing the services of Pat Fry, who joins from Alpine as Chief Technology Officer. Did.
Baules and Fry have previously worked with the likes of Michael Schumacher, Mika Hakkinen, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and Jenson Button. There are 20 world titles between them. In the combined nearly 60 years of Grand Prix racing, there aren’t many things that haven’t been seen.
But the pair revealed the scale of the problems Williams faced while building the car, with Vowles explaining how he learned of the problems he was facing on his second day on the job in 2023. “That’s how the huge bow wave happened,” Frye said. A pile of parts was created in the backlog.
Vores knew on the “second day”
“Last year, when I joined the team, it was already February 20th. The car was already a physical presence,” Vowles told the media, including the media. Racing News 365.
“And what I could see was this year’s updates were very lightweight compared to the build.
“Builds come together in 2 weeks at 20,000 bits. Updates are big updates from time to time, but they’re more controlled, whether it’s the floor, front wing, rear wing, whatever it is. There were full signs of trouble, but not as much as in the winter.
“On the second day, when I walked through the door, I really realized how difficult this was going to be, because as I walked around Williams I realized there was almost nothing compared to what I was used to. It didn’t take long.
“I’m not talking about equipment or buildings, we didn’t even have data on processes or even data on component costs.
“We didn’t have data on how long it took to create a component, or even how many components were in the system being built. So if that level of data is lost, how could the problem be? It’s very easy to understand that there are 20,000 bits in the company, how they are integrated, and how much time it takes to build and develop.
“So I knew it right away, and I would say it was immediately clear to me from the moment I walked through the door.
“But what I didn’t know was how to make up for it — and unfortunately, the only way to make up for it is by pushing yourself to the absolute limit.
“That’s why we can never experience something like this again.”
“It’s terribly expensive.”
“The way we build cars is completely different from what I would call ‘normal’,” Frye said in response to a question. Racing News 365.
“It’s not very efficient and everything gets delayed a lot. If I’m slowing things down for some reason, I’m used to doing a lot of work other than performance or floor as early as possible. That’s the biggest Because we’re talking about aero, there’s a cost cap so we’ll only make one anyway, and the one we use in testing will be used in the race.
“But with everything we have, I’ve never seen anything like that and I don’t want to live like that again – and I’m sure James doesn’t want that either.
“It’s heartbreaking in a lot of ways because we released all the aero surfaces pretty early compared to what I was used to and there are tons of parts in a huge bow wave. , because we’re still having a hard time getting them out’ what we have to make.
“It’s not very cost-effective, so we ended up hurting ourselves, but it’s about the way we do things and our culture.
“We need to think smarter about optimizing all three sets of regulations, we need to optimize the financial side as well, and we can’t afford not to.
“What we’ve managed to do is just be horribly expensive.” [to put solutions in place] – and it’s best to avoid it again. ”