F1 News: Williams Team Chief Expects Huge Recruits To Follow New Technical Director
Williams team principal James Vowles has revealed that he is hoping that the appointment of Pat Fry as technical director will lead to a chain reaction of more exciting recruits for the British team.
Vowles revealed during the Belgian Grand Prix weekend that discussions with Fry had begun before he had even moved to Williams from Mercedes.
In an interview with the media, Vowles explained, as quoted by Speedcafe.com:
“The first time I spoke to Pat was actually back in January before it officially started with Williams.
“He was the one I’d highlighted that I really wanted to be within Williams.
“He’s exceptional at coming into organisations that you need someone to pull their sleeves up and properly get stuck into structure and systems.
“There’s different types of [chief technical officers] available to you; there’s ones that are very good at finding your last 10 milliseconds, there’s ones that are very good at putting structures and systems in place, and he’s more the latter.
“He understandably had a journey with Alpine that he wanted to continue but actually, by April, he could see the vision as to why I had joined Williams and was very much in line and on board.”
Vowles went on to confirm that he hopes when people have seen him and Fry make the move to Williams, it might encourage others to do the same. He continued:
“When people saw that I left the comfort of Mercedes to go to Williams, and now people have seen Pat at a time where Alpine was in a strong place, that’s why I wanted it to be clear, this wasn’t in the last few weeks, this was a long time ago, wanting to join Williams, people will now understand that Williams wants a culture of change.
“Once you see two very senior people that have been in the sport for 20 plus years, and winning races, and we want to come here, others will now see why it’s worth that journey.”