How Jost Capito rebuilt Williams by 'listening'

Williams

How Capito rebuilt Williams by 'listening'

Williams had sat at the foot of the constructors' table for three years before Capito's arrival

Sam Hall & Ian Parkes

Sunday 13 February 2022 12:30

Williams team principal Jost Capito has revealed 'listening' formed a "100-day plan" to begin to change the team's fortunes.

Williams sat at the foot of the constructors' championship table for three years from 2018-20 before the arrival of first Dorilton Capital and then Capito.

The 2021 season saw Williams register 23 points and finish ahead of both Haas and Alfa Romeo marking a significant improvement on the previous three years where a combined total of eight points were scored.

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Asked in an end-of-season interview with GPFans if he felt Williams "had stagnated" prior to his appointment in December 2020, Capito said: "Yes.

"My first 100-day plan was really to listen and to... I've never worked at Williams before and I didn't know really anybody there. Then starting the first months without being at the factory was quite a strange situation, but I tried to make the best out of it and arranged one-to-one meetings with all the managers.

"I had more than eight one-to-one meetings in the first couple of weeks and I asked everybody the same questions.

"With it, I got quite a good overview of the various departments, of the various, I would say, duration people that are at Williams, and got a good overview of what people wanted to contain, what they think Williams should be, what Williams is, and where they think changes were necessary.

"That was very useful because then it's not me coming in and I think this has to be done, it was based on evidence, based on all the interviews I had. Asking everybody the same question, you could really categorise the answers and I think gave me a good view."

Capito has already made a number of changes at Williams including bringing his former Volkswagen Motorsport colleague Francois-Xavier [FX] Demaison to the team as technical director.

Asked if people had left or he had more altered things to change the dynamic within the team, Capito explained: "It's a mixture of both because if you want to move the team forward, it's also personnel changes that have to be done.

"Some people left and some were in different positions, and it's very much to get the different dynamics and to work the team more closer together.

"One major decision was for sure to have FX as a technical director and the most decision to have a technical director. That triggered a couple of other changes.

"If you put all engineering under one head, that triggers a couple of other decisions that had to be made."

Williams will launch its 2022 car on Tuesday, February 15.