Williams 'won't accept last anymore' after transition from "family business"

Williams

Williams 'won't accept last anymore' after transition from "family business"

Williams launched the FW44 on February 15

Sam Hall

Tuesday 22 February 2022 15:43

Williams team principal and CEO Jost Capito has stated "we don’t accept to be last anymore" and believes the team has moved from a "family business to a well-structured engineering company".

Sir Frank Williams created Williams Grand Prix Engineering in 1977 and the team has remained on the F1 grid since with the team claiming more constructors' championship titles than any team other than Ferrari.

Despite this culture of success, the team has struggled in recent seasons and finished last in three of the last four seasons.

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A year after joining the team, Capito explained in a media briefing including GPFans: “I think coming in, first of all, you have high respect. If you come into Williams, it is a team with huge heritage, with huge success in the past and if you come in, it is a great honour and it is a great pressure as well because to bring Williams back is a pressure.

“I think we have seen, mainly we did not do a lot of personnel changes. We did some critical changes and I think what helped a lot was to improve the spirit of the team and to give pride and respect to the team.

“It is not a feeling of 'we are in Formula 1 and that is where we want to be', it is Formula 1 and we want to move. We don’t accept to be last anymore. We want to move up the grid and we work hard to do that and we need the spirit and we need to enjoy that journey."

Across 2019-20, Williams scored just a single point but the team bounced back in style last year with a score of 23 with Geroge Russell's podium, the team's first since 2017, the highlight.

“I think that was the main thing and then fighting for points and getting into the position that we got some points," added Capito.

"Then the icing on the cake, the podium in Spa, I think boosted not just the team on the race track but boosted the whole company.

“Also, we developed processes, we developed different structures, we improved the communication within the company so we developed objectives and, okay, ours for this year, we developed our values for the company and the behaviours we want to have in the company.

“So I think we came from very much a family business to a well-structured engineering company.”