Williams in the News: Resurgence, Radio and More from the British GP

British Grand Prix week is always a busy time for the team, both on and off the racetrack. The build-up to Silverstone was dominated by plenty of press appearances, promotional activities and, of course, time spent with our fans.

Here’s just a snippet of the coverage we’ve had over the past few days.

Our journey to get back towards the sharp end of the grid has been making waves throughout the Formula 1 world, and this week James Vowles sat down with The New York Times to discuss exactly how the turnaround is taking shape.

“We put work into this, but what you see today is just the result of getting a thousand people pointing in the right way, with some basic foundations in place,” Vowles shared.

“We’re not championship-level in any part of the organisation yet, but every single part of the organisation is moving up towards that benchmark, that’s what I’m encouraged by.”

He was also full of praise for both of his drivers, who, like him, have committed their future to being part of this journey back to the front.

“They’re both leaders. Twenty of their words are far more powerful than me talking for an hour. They talk from the heart, they talk with passion, and they’re able to lead the team in ways that I can’t.”

James Vowles stopped by Midori House ahead of the British GP to speak to Monocle Radio’s The Entrepreneurs about his philosophy on leadership, and how he’s building a winning culture both on and off the track.

Speaking on how he communicates effectively to the 1,100 people that make up the entire team, he explained:

“I do a little bit of everything. I’ll write an email to the whole factory three times a week, after every race I will go downstairs and make sure we do a team talk together and have a chat.

“We do meetings with the whole company once a month to make sure we’re just talking through what’s going on. These are brilliant, but I’ll have lunches with people from all over the organisation brought together in the room – you’ll get people that have never met each other in this 1,100-person business talking to each other and that’s where the real magic happens.

“Ultimately, those minutes that you spend, I learn more than I’ll ever learn just sat in my office piling through emails that I think are important.”

Prior to the British Grand Prix, Alex Albon spoke to the BBC on a range of topics – from benchmarking himself to his teammate, the mental side of sport, and being in a relationship with a professional sportsperson.

He also explained why he thinks 2028 is the year he has earmarked as the one for a serious challenge at the front of the field.

"We are a very different team to a top team at the moment," he says. "We're still on a journey to get there, and we talk very openly about the journey and our weaknesses as a team.

"I don't think next year we're going to be in a position to fight for wins, and I think it will be very rare to get a chance at podiums, but that's my mindset, that's our mindset.

"2027 will be an interesting year, and then realistically, I know this sounds really far away, but 2028 is kind of where I expect us to be, up at the front end. I think that's realistic."

A feel-good story that came out of the British Grand Prix weekend was Nico Hulkenberg securing the first podium of his Formula 1 career.

The German racer's F1 journey began at Williams back in 2010, and 239 race starts later, he finally got to soak in the champagne up on the rostrum.

Carlos Sainz is a former teammate of Hulkenberg and told ESPN that he knew this day would eventually come.

“For me, he's always been a top-five driver on the grid every time he's been in F1, and his level of race execution is incredible,” Sainz explained.

"I was his teammate for a time and the fact that he didn't have a podium was just circumstantial and due to his teams he had driven in. I'm glad he has this podium now to shut everyone up who doubted him, for me I never doubted him and knew one day he would always be on a podium."

James Vowles and Jenson Button both hit the airwaves last week when they appeared on The Chris Moyles Show on Radio X.

A wide range of topics were discussed, including the idea that you would never be allowed inside a football team’s dressing room 15 minutes from kick-off, but in Formula 1, it’s perfectly normal to have thousands of people on the grid just moments before the lights go out.

You can watch JV’s interview here, and JB’s interview here.