How did nine rejection letters and “boring” data lead to “the biggest transformation in sport”? Americans might know Formula One Racing from the hit Netflix show “Drive to Survive.” But F1 has long been a fan favorite in Britain and Europe. Today’s guest, team principal James Vowles, sits down with Oz to discuss how he’s bringing his team, Atlassian Williams F1 Team, from a recent slump into the Top 5. His process involves being “data-rich”, pushing his team to the brink, and utilizing AI and technology to get that elusive tenth of a second in speed.
Additional Reading:
- ‘Get rid of the battery’: F1 under increasing pressure to make more changes to engine rules | Formula One 2026 | The Guardian
- Formula One Went Green—and It’s Driving Everyone Crazy | WSJ
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome to tech Stuff. I'mos Volocian. Formula one is a
spectacle of speed, glamour and Netflix worthy drama. But if
you look past the tire smoke, what you're actually seeing
is one of the most high stakes R and D
labs on Earth. One thousand people per team working to
find a tenth per second conducting this complex orchestra of
(00:37):
human machine interaction. Is the team principal, and today we're
joined by James Bowls. After several years as the chief
strategist at Mercedes during one of the most dominant runs
in sports history, he became team principal of Williams F
one back in twenty twenty three, and now he's tasked
with one of the great rebuilding projects in modern engineering,
bringing a legendary British icon back to the front of
(00:59):
the grid. James, welcome to take stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Thank you so much and what a lovely intro. Well done.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
But did I get anything wrong?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
No, it was just really lovely. I loved it.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I kind of want to start the beginning of your story,
which began with a letter writing campaign. If I understand correctly,
you had no connection to this boord of F one
and you wrote letters to two teams, one of which
was Williams.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
It wrote letters to actually all teams. I wasn't even
being picky or selective. There was eleven teams back then.
I wrote eleven letters. I was at University of studying
mathematics and computer science. It was the nineties. It was
sensible subjects to be doing, because the world would need those.
But I couldn't see myself behind a desk for eight
ten hours a day. It just didn't feel like me.
(01:42):
I loved Formula one. I was on TV. That was
my connection to it. I loved the fact that this
human machine melding with a team behind the scenes, and
that everyone's pushing themselves further than they ever thought before,
surrounded by peers doing the same, and so I wanted
to be a part of that world. Wrote letters because
that's what you did back in the nineties. Two of
(02:03):
those really provided me some helpful guidance. One was Williams
and one was a team called British American Racing, and
both indicated that I needed to have more of an
engineering backround. Not a problem. So I finished that degree
off went and did a second master's level degree in engineering.
I had no money. I was really quite a bit
in debt at that point in time, and designed the
(02:25):
school race car, won some awards with the team, and
at first I thought, this is it. I mean the money,
no problem. Anyway, the company went bankrupt two weeks later,
not for design, but they went bankrupt. But in the audience,
what I hadn't realized is we presented to many many
people that were Formula one teams, and I had a
job off for the next day and it was to
British American Racing, which turned into pawn GP, which turned
(02:46):
into Mercedes that I joined. But Williams was a part
of my very early I guess communication points and meant
a lot to me.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
I find it really fascinating because you know, it's kind
of those stories that, like, you didn't get a job
in response to your letter, You've got a response which
put you in the direction of ultimately becoming a team principle.
And what I mean A what did you say in
the letter? And B what was it in you that
gave you the confidence or the belief that was worth
doing despite the very low odds.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
So what I put on the letter was I gave
my background to who I was, where I was. I
was actually blunting it. I said, I'm not what you
will have in the business today. I'm confident of that.
I suspect you have highly skilled individuals, but I want
me to be one of those. So help me by
guiding me on what I need to change in my
journey to get there. And I'm happy to do within reason.
(03:37):
Most things experience gain knowledge game and I think because
it was constructed that way. As I said, nine of
them were just straight thanks very much, we'll keep you
on file. Two of them weren't because it was clearly
not applying to a specific job, but rather an individual
that was had capability to go further. So they wanted
(04:00):
to reply, I'm stubborn. Actually the rejection was the best
thing could happen to me. I posted those letters on
my wall, so they were above my bed.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
The nine rejections you posted on your.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Wall, all eleven actually were all posted up. Remember state
me five and six blue tacked on the wall. And
every day that I woke up, it meant that I
looked at them. Every night when I went to sleep,
I would look at them, and it was just my
driving force of I will get there, not a problem
I have Every belief that I will get there, and
it's that is how I'm built as a human being.
(04:32):
I need to be pushed and I need to push myself,
and it allowed me to do so every single day.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
You know, It's funny. It reminds me of something that
happened to me when I was at high school. I
ran this club within the high school where we would
write to external speakers to invite them to come. And one,
for whatever reason, was quite offended by my letter and
just returned it crossed out with a no exclamation mark.
And I was so embarrassed when I got immediately threw
in the bin and I thought, actually fished this out
(04:58):
of the bin and put it on my desk because
being resilient in the face of it, I think is
will be important for me. So write letters. Is the
moral of the story, and keep their rejections.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Actually, I think also the moral of the story. And
you absolutely just embodied that is the following. You are
going to fail every day of your life. It's going
to happen. What you do with that failure defines you
as human being. You can either throw it away and
ignore it, or choose to have it funt and center
and make actions as a result of it. And actually
what you described there is absolutely my culture, which is
(05:28):
failure as a part of life accepted, but change as
a result of it.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
So you were at Mercedes, You're on top of the world.
It was in the glory days of Lewis Hamilton winning
race after race. What on earth made you decide to leave?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I loved my time at Mercedes. They still are today
an incredible outfit and I was part of a really
strong senior leader group and it was a pleasure working
with Toto. He was an exceptional still as human being.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
To learn from Toto, of course being Toto Wolf, the
renowned team principle at Mescedes one.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Total, and I had really honest conversations about what my
future was, what my direction was. But he also had
an honest conversation that he's very happy in that position
team principle and frankly the best at what he does
up and down the pit lane. And it meant that
there was, of course a job for me, but my
future really for me, if I'm going to forge it,
I'm going to have to go elsewhere and do that. That
(06:21):
wasn't the direct conversation we had. It was more letting
me know where he was in his position, he would
invest in me and grow me as much as possible.
For me, I came to the conclusion that I need
to jump in the deep end of a swimming pool
and make sure I can swim and prove to myself
and prove to the world. And so at the end
of twenty two that was the conclusion I came to
(06:41):
it's time for me to forge my own pathway and
that there were a number of options available to me.
It wasn't just Williams, however, I signed here within seven
days the first conversation, which is incredibly quick, and the
reason is this. It was the team that I fell
in love with when I was a kid. It was
(07:02):
the team that I followed when as a kid. It's independent.
It's here because it's here to be a sports team
and a racing team. That's what it lives and breathes
to do every day. It has nine World Championships to
its name, seven Drivers Championships to its history. Such a
rich history and the Dalton who I met as a
part of this are serious on the application of investment
(07:23):
to bring this team back to championship winning ways.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
So for me, that's the group who owned the team.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Correct, the owners of the team, and so that opportunity
comes once in your lifetime on my opinion, to bring
an iconic team with the right investment, with the right
ways of working back to the front.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Now, did you look them in the eye and say
you've won nine, I'm going to bring you a.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Tenth similar to I looked them in the eye and
said with this, this is what we need to do,
and it will be a challenge because we're a long
way back, but I'll be by your side whilst we
go on to win championships. As simple as that. It
was a commitment both ways. The interesting part was is
when I came through the door, it was probably a
(08:04):
little bit there was a little bit further behind in
some areas than I expected, but we will still get
there irrespective. I'm very confident of that.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
I want to ask you what it was like when
you came through the door, but first I want to
ask where you are today. I mean, last season, I
think you finished fifth in an extremely respectable kind of
best of the rest position, and you had put a
lot of focus for the media, for the organization on
the idea that you know twenty twenty four and twenty
(08:31):
twenty five. Most of the development resources were in fact
focused on twenty twenty six season, correct, I mean, how
do you describe your start poor?
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Poor would be a polite way of working it. So
we challenged our ways of working across the board, how
we design, how long it takes to design, how we
push projects, the level of detail that we're going into,
how many different concepts we're going to evaluate, how do
we evaluate those in an efficient way. There was a
large scope of work around it, which meant that we
couldn't put much focus into only five but we did, irrespective,
(09:02):
still bring performance to the car in the form of
ways of working or some of the longer term projects
that actually gave some lovely benefit last year as well.
At the same time and otherwise, we just told the
team and the drivers, get on with it fifth as possible,
let's go. So great job by Carlos Alex and the teams.
So back onto twenty six we had a bit of
(09:23):
a bumpy winter. We didn't pass all of the required
FI tests in the time period we needed to as well,
which added additional stress on what was a very stressed
program already. Now we could have made it earlier. But
my goal in all of this is not anything more
than to find where we have issues and fix them immediately.
And I guarante you this winter basically flushed everything out
(09:44):
that was ever going to be flushed out. Now, what
I'm pleased with is the following. What I wanted to
demonstrate is with this five week gap that we had
between Zuga to Miami that were not the Williams of old,
that we can turn ourselves around and bring performance and
treat every single day as a sprint to effectively do so.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
And indeed, you said right after the race in Japan,
which was in Tuzuka, which was pretty much a disastrous race,
you said, it was a painful day to day, and
I want to make a line in the sand. These
next five weeks will be some of the hardest for
us purposefully, so as we dig deep. Now, you really
put a target on your back by saying that, right,
and it was the evidently the right thing to do it,
(10:26):
because you did drive quite a definitely more performance in
the Miami race.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Sadly not infinitely that'd be a lot better, but a
significant amount more performance. Yeah, it's we brought a lot,
whether it was through the ecodermics packages, aerodynamic packages, exhaust
blowing ways of working software systems. There was a lot
on the table. There was thirty thirty two scopes of work,
not all delivered. I'd say the majority delivered though, and
(10:50):
with real tangible performance that came with it. At the
same time, and what I love about this sport is
that you can demonstrate the world and to the individual
that are pouring their heart and soul into it, the
impact of their work is visible. Bannues for the businesses,
I've done the same with these next three weeks. So
we are challenging ourselves to again for Canada, bring more
(11:11):
performance again.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
And where do you think your land this season? Would
fifth be a result again?
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yeah, as much as it sounds negative to just be
static and where you were, I think fifth would be resolved.
I think more important than the championship position, it's demonstrating
to the world that by the end of the season
will back up and fighting as we were at the
end of last year, because what there clearly demonstrates is
a turnaround and the ability to add performance in a
competitive way to the car.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Just for the non racing fan, how do you how
do you actually do that. I mean, how did you
spend those five weeks between Suzuka and Miami. What was
your day like, what was your team's day, like, what
was everyone doing? How did the orchestra come together?
Speaker 2 (11:53):
So very different with Formula One to pretty much every
other racing series in the world is that it's a
prototype game. So the car that we bringed every race
we aimed to bring performance, aerodynamic components, for ecademics, components, suspension,
we can change the car, and we do change the car.
So a new car this year is tens of thousands components.
(12:15):
Maybe about fifty thousand components is what constitutes the car
that went to Melbourne. Like, it's a very large number,
all designed in house, not necessarily all produced in house,
and we aim to bring to a race normally maybe
one hundred two hundred new bits. What we did with
Miami is were way bigger on that number. So there
was a new floor which is aerodynamic performance, new bodywork
(12:36):
which is aerodynamic performance, new front wing modifications, aerodynamic performance,
exhaust blowing at the back, aerodomic performance, a new way
of operating the power unit, which is just basically power
on track and delivery of electrical energy. And another way
of optimizing as well that was brought to Miami. We
also bought new risk suspension that allowed us to run
the car in a slightly different way that we did perform,
(12:58):
bring the balance window together at the same time, and
a different way of balancing on rear suspension. So all
of those components I've listed. There's quite a few more
projects behind the scenes, but all of those are the
big ticket items that each of them deliver quite large
amounts of performance when you cumulet them together. And what
you see is it's a relative game. It doesn't matter
if we bring I'm going to make a number up
two tents of performance. If everyone else brings two tents
(13:20):
of performance, you do not move forward. You need to
bring whatever everyone else is bringing plus two or three
tenths effectively. And that's the relative game that I enjoy
in all of this, and now that game continues for
the rest of the year. We also brought weight saving.
I should have said that, and that's a complex one
to bring. It doesn't sound complex, but we're a little
bit heavy to start the year. We have performance. Weight
(13:41):
is just simple physics. Formula F equals MA, so effectively
mass times acceleration. It is a known value. It's really predictable.
It's just physics. Take mass out, you go faster up
to the minimum limit, and we have work to do there.
But in Miami, well done to the team a really
good job in bringing that out the car as well.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
This experience, I know you're still in the middle of it,
but it changed your leadership philosophy at or like how
do you calibrate the appropriate amount of stress to bring
to an organization? Like how do you And you look
around the room. You've clearly got the belief of everyone
who works for them with you, but also you don't
want to feel so much pressure they start to make mistakes,
but you need to get them right to the line,
(14:20):
like how do you and do you have mentors or advisors?
Like how do you conceive of that?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
So an interesting conversation that was in this very room.
I'm in the border at the moment, I had with
one other team. It was a good conversation and their
words were, we were busy before, and you added a
load that brought us to right to the brink, which
I assume was your goal. You're like, yep, and what
I'm interested in is knowing when you are that brink
and when you're over, because to your point, there's no
(14:46):
point pushing ourselves to the point where we're just actually
throwing away performance through mistakes. I like the concept of
aim high and fail if you have to tweet that goal,
it's very simil's the first start of the conversation that
we had that failure were need to success in my experience,
but it will lead you to push yourself harder than
you believed you could achieve as well. At the same time,
(15:06):
and the answer to it is data and metrics. Very boring.
I'm a very boring person. I wrap everything with metrics
datas and that was a large change we had. Every
one of these projects had a wrap around to it
where you can see how much resource it needed, what
resource it was, how we're delivering against it. And it
allows you to stress the business and understand what's delivering
and what's not delivering and if it's not delivering, is
it a resource constraint, let's go and see if we
(15:28):
can fix it. The next is you need to have
a relationship in the business. So I was very much
walking around speaking to everyone I could speak to you
to understand where their stress pinch points are how they're
feeling about things, and you get a really good feeling
from that to understand where you are and where you're
pushing and how much more you have to give. I
have no doubt that there was nothing more to give
(15:48):
in these five weeks. That was it. That was all
we could bring across the business. Coaching. First of all,
leadership to in and around me is not one individual.
That's not the game anymore. Is about all of you
working together. And what I mean by that is it's
one thousand, two hundred people all working in exactly the
same direction of travel. The next is it's therefore about
(16:09):
leadership team that pull yourself together in those difficult times.
I also have a coach, fantastic ex Special Forces, so
he whips my backside into shape and pretty blunt on
telling me when I'm an idiot and when I'm not.
But I enjoy working with him at the same time
because frankly, I'm not a polished finished article. None of
us are, and I want to keep improving myself to
(16:31):
get more out of myself and more out of the company.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
All the way through, I'll ask you more about the
data and how you measure it. And how you track
and how you respond to it. But just before that,
I also want to talk about culture, because you said
something very interesting about the Williams that you entered as
team principal. You said it was surviving for many years.
And survival does some strange things to you. You become
isolated from what you're doing, fearful of changing too far
(16:56):
outside the boundaries of what you're used to. How do
you go about changing that culture?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
So, first of all, survival can happen for a number
of reasons. You don't have enough finances that your hand
to mouth on anything can be finances, it can be parts,
it can be ways of working, It can be fear
that drives it as well. So you have to approach
each of those problems with the relevant tools to fix them.
Step one of all of it is you add a
(17:21):
healthy slurp of headcount that allows you to get your
head above water a little bit. There was just an
amount of resource that was frankly just lacking. So you
put the resource in place enough that people's heads above grounds.
They're not now just treading water, but they are able
to have some thinking space. And with that thinking space
you use it to then really talk about where the
optimizations can have the biggest differences. Now here's an eternal
(17:44):
problem that all businesses will fall into if you locally optimize,
and we did in a few areas, but you locally
optimize your break somewhere else. The facts behind it is,
it's not about one part of the business, it's the
whole structure of the business that's important. At that stage.
Before you get there, you need to bring a vision
to everyone of what the future can look like. And
what I often use is tools of you sometimes don't
(18:07):
feel you're moving forward, Think back six months ago, and
I'll give you real world examples of what we were
doing six months ago that we are not doing any
more today. And I'll think forward six months in the
future and think to what state you want that to
be in that's a realistic state, and go chase it.
In other words, all too often, when you're caught in
the moment, you don't realize the positivity that's changed in
(18:28):
and around you. And there's plenty. There's plenty to bank
yourself on and it gives you confidence in the direction
of travel we're going into. Next, I do an email
that contains a brilliant individual from our organization and send
o out once a week effectively, and it highlights their
traits and what they've brought to the business. And typically,
if I can find someone that's actually failed, they've tried
(18:48):
their base, they've been innovating, they're on the brink of
boundary of innovation, and as a result, you failed, and
they've used that to learn and be better. All the
better but effectively reinforce positive tendencies through those mechanisms. I
have really enjoyable lunches that take place again in this
very room where I'll bring individuals from the team from
all different areas purpose that you always mixed up with,
(19:09):
all different areas that have a story to tell on
what has changed. So you propagate the fact that around
the business, I will support all of you. I will
have your back whatever happens, as long as what you're
doing is pushing the boundaries of innovation. And if you
fail on the journey, no problem. If we fail in
what's called a constant state, so it's a repeatable task
that we just haven't had due diligence or followed a
(19:30):
procedure that's different, that is a problem. That is just
normal failure. But if we're doing something that is bringing
the team forward and is true innovation. You will fail
on that journey and I'll be by.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
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podcast episode description box. What about the technology base is
A what is the technology base? And B what does
(21:07):
it mean to rebuild it?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
So that this is not going to sound like an advantage,
but it is. We didn't have much here to begin with,
and what that means is there's no risk of breaking it.
There's nothing to particularly break in a bad way. Now
in general ways, we're a weird business, but I enjoy
this business for this reason. We are a design business,
so we design product. We then produce the product in
(21:32):
the business as well, say, most of it's done here,
some of its timeousours, and then we operate and use
the product. And that's very odd. Most businesses, you perhaps
just design it, or maybe you design and produce, but
you definitely don't design, producer, and operate. And that's what
we are. And so we're sort of this very complete
stack from top to bottom, and that makes us quite unique.
In the world. As a result of it, the technologies
(21:54):
you need for those different areas are different. So within
manufacturing you need a site called ERP PLM, so you
need ways of Basically, if you imagine a race car,
the race car is made up of fifty thousand components
and each of those components can have sub components. Effectively,
it can be a bolt to washer. You need to
be able to break down the whole car to see
every single component that goes into it. Because every car
(22:15):
that we bring to a race is different. I've already
mentioned the upgrades we've pound the car, but we set
the car up differently as well, So.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
You need to drive it or for each race or
both both effectively.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
So you need a system of being able to keep
on top of all of the thousands of different parts
that you need, what builds into it. Have you gone
out off spares the track? And that's what effectively parts tracking, ERP,
P and M systems allow you to structure properly. Abound
the scenes. You need design software, which is what our
designers use at the same time, and ways of working
with them that the information is freely available to everyone
(22:46):
at the same time. In aerodynamics, you need competitional fluid
dynamics software that allows you to do wind tunnel testing,
a big big fan switching on and blowing on a
physical object, and theoretical world simulation world to simulate. At
the same time, you need software to be able to
analyze data that's being spat out for your simulator because
that's working nearly twenty four hours a day, or your
(23:07):
simulation tools that's definitely working twenty four hours a day,
or the track. So we have data in tons, but
bring it together and having the ability to view it
in the useful way for human beings is a core
part of some of the software that we're using. The
next part of it is this we are, as I said,
we're data rich, but we're not big data. That's different
(23:27):
big data in supermarkets doing billions of transactions. Yeah, we
have a lot of data coming off the car, but
every lap we do is almost different to last. And
so you need to father systems that allow you to interpret
what you can and can't use as a carryover to that.
And this is not just formula one. Now we're talking
about AI is making a tangible difference, and it does
not matter whether I'm talking about legal, human resources, designers trackside.
(23:51):
All of them have basic remedia tasks. AI frankly can
do a better job better yea faster and more accurate.
All of them have environments where I don't want human
beings doing the sludge slow part of the job. I
want to give that to someone else, so that that
actually we use human beings in an elevated way as
a result of it, and we will always be a
(24:12):
human technology sport. We have human drivers, human pick with
that go with that, human engineers that go with at
the same time, but we want to supplement them in
tools and systems that make their job easier and easier.
So that's again I haven't described anything that's actually Formula
one specific. That's all companies in the world that are
probably thinking that way, but in our world and especially
(24:33):
at Williams when bracing it very fast.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
But there is something unique about Formula one in terms
of the human machine interaction we spoke about at the beginning,
and in terms of what you alluded to that week
by week, race by race, the world gets to see
how you're doing, So talk about how you I mean,
you've got this thinking partnership with Anthropic and with Claude
what does that mean Beyond a logo on the car,
(24:59):
how do you actually with Claude?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
So there were no every part that we have that
includes a propic, Claude, that includes a Lassion, excludes Brillio,
that includes Aria, every single one. I've only mentioned the
tech set to ones. But they bring real tangible change
to how we operate as a business, and that is
something incredibly important for me. I'm not interested stickers in
the car, by the way, nor are they. What I'm
(25:23):
interested in is be with us on our journey and
help us change. In the case of Aria and Brideo
for example, what they bring is governance and structure for
how to use AI in the correct and safe way,
and almost Navy seal type individuals that will come in
and help us exploit AI to the best ability. By
the way that can be with Claude or otherwise. I
may sound really strange and bullying, but think about it
(25:45):
this way. If you leave urgentic systems completely unstructured with
your business, they will damage it if you do not
know what you're doing. So there is structure that's required.
Next claud what Claude is, It's embedded throughout the whole
business and different usage depending on where we are. What
I'm definitely seeing from it is take legal much quicker
turn around on what we're doing with any constructural agreements.
(26:06):
That that's simple. I think that's sort of described only
business in the world. But here's what's exciting within design.
All of a sudden, you're not constrained with the ideas
in your head. You're constrained with you using a tool
to allow you to flow a lot more freely. What
it's doing, in other words, is allowing for innovation with
tools that can expand your mindset and knowledge. And that
is the thinking part of it. If we really blunt.
(26:27):
There's two elements to claude. One is you can simplify
tasks that previously took you an hour typical speed up
that Lord will talk about three x my experiences we're
seeing ten x. And that gives you thinking time because
that's what human beings are much better at. Actually, what
are these regulations? How do we change them? How do
we go here further and then use tools to expand
that knowledge out And it's doing that in spades at
(26:50):
lastiam different tool, but we are working so much better
together as a result of it. So an example of
that is every time we run the car or a
machine downstairs, or way of working, we get something wrong.
And if you track that and create a fault and
then associate it with a human being that has accountability
and responsibility to fix it, we talk about it, you
document it, and you work with it. Now, if you
(27:11):
ought to make your data flows, all the data goes
in there at the same time, which is what we've done.
You're now in a much better way of working where
you're not going to fix all ten thousand problems a weekend,
but you will fix your core ones, which will move
the business forward with an accountable mechanism. Now to follow
it through again, it's data. Now we're in the infancy.
I really do mean this. There are companies out there
(27:32):
that are better than us at AI. There's no doubt
about it in my mind.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
In fact, you've said that the formula one as a
whole is behind the curve on AI, which I found
quite surprising.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yes, I'm confident we are.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
But why every team is harnessing simulation to your point,
is harnessing optimizers, you know AI Drougan optimization. Why do
you think you're behind the curve as a sport.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
So don't just mean the sport. I mean relative to
other companies in the world. I don't mean relative to
all companies. I suspect there are companies that have no
idea what AI is, and having even moved in that.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Direction of trouble.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
I suspect there are companies that use GPT to make
their life or CLAUD to make their life better by
asking questions. That's not what I would consider AI. But
that's about the level that some Formula one teams are today.
Why we're incredibly domain specific. What we do is only
done by ten other teams in the world. There's no
one else that works on an engineering life cycle of
(28:25):
five weeks. I want these ideas and I want them
at the track. That doesn't mean we can't make it
better with AI, but it does mean you can't replace
that with skilled human beings. Some repeatable tasks are more
set up for agentic flows to make a difference. Some
of it's in legal HR finance being completely blunt, which
is where you see speed up because they are repeatable
(28:45):
tasks that you can actually wrap system and process around.
We're asking human beings to read a set of rules
and come up with innovative ways of designing and producing
those products very quickly, and it's less set up. For
that reason, if you said, I mean it's not repeatable.
Every day they're doing different job or a different way
of working. That doesn't mean there's things we can't do
to make it better, which is what I've described, But
(29:06):
I also think that means that we've been a little
bit behind the curve on it because it is such
a specialist. To me. The next part is this, we're
flat out the whole time, and when you're flat out
the whole time, all too often you don't take a
moment to think about what you're doing and think whether
there's a better way of doing it. And I think
a part of it is just that we are so
driven to bring twenty milliseconds to the next race that
(29:30):
we may not be thinking about how to bring performance
in two years time through different structures and ways of working.
So there's a little bit of both of those together,
but it's more based on my experience of some companies.
I spend a bit of time with Deeplind for examples
on Google spin off, and that's incredible innovation right at
the front line of where we are and formerly one
isn't there and may not be there for quite a
few years. But that's more what I meant by it.
(29:52):
There's other companies out there that absolutely the way. I
don't think we're the worst by the way. I think
there's other companies worse than we are, just don't think
we're pushing the boundaries of it.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
We talked a lot about human machine interaction at its best,
how Formula one is almost a symphonic articulation of that.
But it seems like this season the humans don't like
the machine, or at least they don't like the power
the power unit, and this has become I mean, it's
amazing how Formula one has developed the sport because it
has become like mainstream news and every publication as a
(30:22):
headline in The Guardian, get rid of the Battery F one,
Under increasing pressure to make more changes to engine rules,
all three journal Formula one went green. It's driving everyone crazy.
I mean, this is like, you know, a big drama
about an engine, which is kind of amazing. But what's
your take.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
My take is this, I don't think we've got all
the changes right across the roser. But what I like
as a sport is we all got together over these
last five weeks and we made a series of changes
adds up to about fifteen to twenty thirty significant changes
when you put them together. And I think in Miami
the racing was fantastic. It really was a good show.
(31:00):
My point behind that is we are trying to make
some quite significant rule changes along the way. I don't
think the product we had in Shanghai or Melbourne was bad.
I enjoyed sitting back and watching the two Ferraris just
race each other against the Mercedes in Shanghai, for example,
And I was in the race and I should have
my focus elsewhere. So we have to acknowledge did we
get it all right?
Speaker 1 (31:19):
No?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I wasn't expecting us to. You're making a lot of changes.
Did we then do the right thing by coming together
and make changes that are net post of the sport? Yes?
And what I like is even tomorrow we have a
meeting with the FIA from the one all the teams
post Miami to talk about it and go did we
do enough? What else should we be changing? What's our
feeling on this one? And a timeline that is one year,
(31:41):
three years, five years. So my message behind all of
this is this is what we still have a great
sport to watch, I believe. So. I watched the Miami
when I was there, and it was nice to score
ninth and tenth, but it was a good race to watch.
So I think we've addressed and fixed most of those issues.
Will it be perfect the rest of the year. I
think there's enough discussions going on now to make sure
(32:02):
that we cover that off and for our future state.
There's already been another of news stories out there, but
I think we're open minded enough to realize that sport
has to keep evolving and changing as all sports should
as the result of it. But I hope that that
notes behind us now. My personal opinion is I think
we're through the worst of it.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
The gun to your head, get rid of the battery
or keep it?
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Nope, I would keep it. I think there's a road
relevancy to it. I just think the margins the ratios
are slightly wrong, which is what we tuned in Miami.
I think even in future years, you have someone that battery.
And to explain why I joined this sport for two reasons. One,
I love the elite competitive nature of it too. I
like making real world difference with what we're doing. So
(32:46):
what have we done so far this year, well across
the last twenty years. Trash control abs, active, suspensioned, active era.
That's all technology is developing form the one that you
would have had in your car today. Maybe not active
error for a lot of them, have it on my
car downstairs, but not all do. I like the fact
that we're on synthetic fuel because that is basically a
game changer for the world. Electrication probably won't be the
(33:07):
solution for a while, but it gives us twenty thirty
years to figure out what is the right solution in
the right way. And that might be synthetic all the way,
might not be. It doesn't matter. It's there. And again,
road relevancy battery technology. There is an amount of energy
that we're losing while breaking and doing other functions, and
actually a small battery makes some difference on that one.
So it's road relevant. And I think that technology that
(33:28):
we're developing will be something that defines how we use
road cars for the next twenty years. So batteries still
have a place. I think they still have a place
in the next rule set in twenty thirty one. I
think we got the balances slightly out of whack, corrected
as we go through this journey.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Final question for you, James. We're talking in tech world,
as you know about the power law, the idea that
basically a few giants monopolize resources and returns. It's also
something we observe in other sports, in Premier League football
or you know, we talked earlier that fifth was a
great result last season. Actually it would be a decent
(34:05):
result this season, provided that it's a fifth while delivering
on all the changes you're making to how the team
operates and does business. But what would it take to
get to break to disrupt the power law in the
way in a sense that the calendid.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
So it's a good question. So the one with mclowen
is if you look at the average position across five years,
it's actually always been part of the top four. They
just had a few years where they fell back to it,
which is important to note. And if you do the
same work with Williams. Unfortunately we were further behind than that.
So it's a bigger trajectory. We often call it the
biggest transformation at sport. That's the reason why I call it.
(34:40):
From where we were, this is the biggest transformation, however,
already to move the team significantly from pretty much the
back to the top of the midfield should show everyone
that the change is real and tangible. To break into
the top four, in my experience, top three is exponentially
harder than what we've just done. But the real investments
that we're doing behind the scenes haven't all kicked in
(35:01):
yet and won't kick in for a while. So we
have we'll announce it in over the forthcoming months. But
some really great people that have joined the phrase. So
part of it is people. Part of it is systematic investment.
We've been investing tens of millions every year in new
facilities and new ways of working. There not I've been
running yet, but it will change what you're doing. The
next is I want us to be defined by technology.
(35:23):
I don't want to do things in the same way
we've done elsewhere for ten years. I want to be
a disruptor in that regard. Now that has risk. Weich
where we spoke about we can get it wrong as
well at the same time, but I suspect the bets
and a few areas will pay off, and a few
areas won't be quite up to where it needs to
be where we need to rethink it. But that allows
us a differentiation that doesn't happen in most of the places.
(35:43):
There's a reason why if you look at not now
because I'm not wearing it, but our shirt at racing
in the car, we have as many partners as we
do that are in that space. It's real, it's tangible.
It's because I believe that is the way to differentiate ourselves.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
James Philms, thank you, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Thanks as.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
For text FIM's volos and this episode was produced by
Eliza Dennis and Melissa Slaughter. Executive produced by me Julian
Nutter and Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope and Katrian Novell for
iHeart Podcasts. Paul Bowman engineered this episode, Jack Insley mixed it,
and Kyle Murdoch wrote our theme song. A special thanks
to Nina Richards, Abby Ridsteel Smith, Adam Chapman, and the
(36:29):
Williams F One team.
Welcome to tech Stuff. I'mos Volocian. Formula one is a
spectacle of speed, glamour and Netflix worthy drama. But if
you look past the tire smoke, what you're actually seeing
is one of the most high stakes R and D
labs on Earth. One thousand people per team working to
find a tenth per second conducting this complex orchestra of
(00:37):
human machine interaction. Is the team principal, and today we're
joined by James Bowls. After several years as the chief
strategist at Mercedes during one of the most dominant runs
in sports history, he became team principal of Williams F
one back in twenty twenty three, and now he's tasked
with one of the great rebuilding projects in modern engineering,
bringing a legendary British icon back to the front of
(00:59):
the grid. James, welcome to take stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Thank you so much and what a lovely intro. Well done.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
But did I get anything wrong?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
No, it was just really lovely. I loved it.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I kind of want to start the beginning of your story,
which began with a letter writing campaign. If I understand correctly,
you had no connection to this boord of F one
and you wrote letters to two teams, one of which
was Williams.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
It wrote letters to actually all teams. I wasn't even
being picky or selective. There was eleven teams back then.
I wrote eleven letters. I was at University of studying
mathematics and computer science. It was the nineties. It was
sensible subjects to be doing, because the world would need those.
But I couldn't see myself behind a desk for eight
ten hours a day. It just didn't feel like me.
(01:42):
I loved Formula one. I was on TV. That was
my connection to it. I loved the fact that this
human machine melding with a team behind the scenes, and
that everyone's pushing themselves further than they ever thought before,
surrounded by peers doing the same, and so I wanted
to be a part of that world. Wrote letters because
that's what you did back in the nineties. Two of
(02:03):
those really provided me some helpful guidance. One was Williams
and one was a team called British American Racing, and
both indicated that I needed to have more of an
engineering backround. Not a problem. So I finished that degree
off went and did a second master's level degree in engineering.
I had no money. I was really quite a bit
in debt at that point in time, and designed the
(02:25):
school race car, won some awards with the team, and
at first I thought, this is it. I mean the money,
no problem. Anyway, the company went bankrupt two weeks later,
not for design, but they went bankrupt. But in the audience,
what I hadn't realized is we presented to many many
people that were Formula one teams, and I had a
job off for the next day and it was to
British American Racing, which turned into pawn GP, which turned
(02:46):
into Mercedes that I joined. But Williams was a part
of my very early I guess communication points and meant
a lot to me.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
I find it really fascinating because you know, it's kind
of those stories that, like, you didn't get a job
in response to your letter, You've got a response which
put you in the direction of ultimately becoming a team principle.
And what I mean A what did you say in
the letter? And B what was it in you that
gave you the confidence or the belief that was worth
doing despite the very low odds.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
So what I put on the letter was I gave
my background to who I was, where I was. I
was actually blunting it. I said, I'm not what you
will have in the business today. I'm confident of that.
I suspect you have highly skilled individuals, but I want
me to be one of those. So help me by
guiding me on what I need to change in my
journey to get there. And I'm happy to do within reason.
(03:37):
Most things experience gain knowledge game and I think because
it was constructed that way. As I said, nine of
them were just straight thanks very much, we'll keep you
on file. Two of them weren't because it was clearly
not applying to a specific job, but rather an individual
that was had capability to go further. So they wanted
(04:00):
to reply, I'm stubborn. Actually the rejection was the best
thing could happen to me. I posted those letters on
my wall, so they were above my bed.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
The nine rejections you posted on your.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Wall, all eleven actually were all posted up. Remember state
me five and six blue tacked on the wall. And
every day that I woke up, it meant that I
looked at them. Every night when I went to sleep,
I would look at them, and it was just my
driving force of I will get there, not a problem
I have Every belief that I will get there, and
it's that is how I'm built as a human being.
(04:32):
I need to be pushed and I need to push myself,
and it allowed me to do so every single day.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
You know, It's funny. It reminds me of something that
happened to me when I was at high school. I
ran this club within the high school where we would
write to external speakers to invite them to come. And one,
for whatever reason, was quite offended by my letter and
just returned it crossed out with a no exclamation mark.
And I was so embarrassed when I got immediately threw
in the bin and I thought, actually fished this out
(04:58):
of the bin and put it on my desk because
being resilient in the face of it, I think is
will be important for me. So write letters. Is the
moral of the story, and keep their rejections.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Actually, I think also the moral of the story. And
you absolutely just embodied that is the following. You are
going to fail every day of your life. It's going
to happen. What you do with that failure defines you
as human being. You can either throw it away and
ignore it, or choose to have it funt and center
and make actions as a result of it. And actually
what you described there is absolutely my culture, which is
(05:28):
failure as a part of life accepted, but change as
a result of it.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
So you were at Mercedes, You're on top of the world.
It was in the glory days of Lewis Hamilton winning
race after race. What on earth made you decide to leave?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
I loved my time at Mercedes. They still are today
an incredible outfit and I was part of a really
strong senior leader group and it was a pleasure working
with Toto. He was an exceptional still as human being.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
To learn from Toto, of course being Toto Wolf, the
renowned team principle at Mescedes one.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Total, and I had really honest conversations about what my
future was, what my direction was. But he also had
an honest conversation that he's very happy in that position
team principle and frankly the best at what he does
up and down the pit lane. And it meant that
there was, of course a job for me, but my
future really for me, if I'm going to forge it,
I'm going to have to go elsewhere and do that. That
(06:21):
wasn't the direct conversation we had. It was more letting
me know where he was in his position, he would
invest in me and grow me as much as possible.
For me, I came to the conclusion that I need
to jump in the deep end of a swimming pool
and make sure I can swim and prove to myself
and prove to the world. And so at the end
of twenty two that was the conclusion I came to
(06:41):
it's time for me to forge my own pathway and
that there were a number of options available to me.
It wasn't just Williams, however, I signed here within seven
days the first conversation, which is incredibly quick, and the
reason is this. It was the team that I fell
in love with when I was a kid. It was
(07:02):
the team that I followed when as a kid. It's independent.
It's here because it's here to be a sports team
and a racing team. That's what it lives and breathes
to do every day. It has nine World Championships to
its name, seven Drivers Championships to its history. Such a
rich history and the Dalton who I met as a
part of this are serious on the application of investment
(07:23):
to bring this team back to championship winning ways.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
So for me, that's the group who owned the team.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Correct, the owners of the team, and so that opportunity
comes once in your lifetime on my opinion, to bring
an iconic team with the right investment, with the right
ways of working back to the front.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Now, did you look them in the eye and say
you've won nine, I'm going to bring you a.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Tenth similar to I looked them in the eye and
said with this, this is what we need to do,
and it will be a challenge because we're a long
way back, but I'll be by your side whilst we
go on to win championships. As simple as that. It
was a commitment both ways. The interesting part was is
when I came through the door, it was probably a
(08:04):
little bit there was a little bit further behind in
some areas than I expected, but we will still get
there irrespective. I'm very confident of that.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
I want to ask you what it was like when
you came through the door, but first I want to
ask where you are today. I mean, last season, I
think you finished fifth in an extremely respectable kind of
best of the rest position, and you had put a
lot of focus for the media, for the organization on
the idea that you know twenty twenty four and twenty
(08:31):
twenty five. Most of the development resources were in fact
focused on twenty twenty six season, correct, I mean, how
do you describe your start poor?
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Poor would be a polite way of working it. So
we challenged our ways of working across the board, how
we design, how long it takes to design, how we
push projects, the level of detail that we're going into,
how many different concepts we're going to evaluate, how do
we evaluate those in an efficient way. There was a
large scope of work around it, which meant that we
couldn't put much focus into only five but we did, irrespective,
(09:02):
still bring performance to the car in the form of
ways of working or some of the longer term projects
that actually gave some lovely benefit last year as well.
At the same time and otherwise, we just told the
team and the drivers, get on with it fifth as possible,
let's go. So great job by Carlos Alex and the teams.
So back onto twenty six we had a bit of
(09:23):
a bumpy winter. We didn't pass all of the required
FI tests in the time period we needed to as well,
which added additional stress on what was a very stressed
program already. Now we could have made it earlier. But
my goal in all of this is not anything more
than to find where we have issues and fix them immediately.
And I guarante you this winter basically flushed everything out
(09:44):
that was ever going to be flushed out. Now, what
I'm pleased with is the following. What I wanted to
demonstrate is with this five week gap that we had
between Zuga to Miami that were not the Williams of old,
that we can turn ourselves around and bring performance and
treat every single day as a sprint to effectively do so.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
And indeed, you said right after the race in Japan,
which was in Tuzuka, which was pretty much a disastrous race,
you said, it was a painful day to day, and
I want to make a line in the sand. These
next five weeks will be some of the hardest for
us purposefully, so as we dig deep. Now, you really
put a target on your back by saying that, right,
and it was the evidently the right thing to do it,
(10:26):
because you did drive quite a definitely more performance in
the Miami race.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Sadly not infinitely that'd be a lot better, but a
significant amount more performance. Yeah, it's we brought a lot,
whether it was through the ecodermics packages, aerodynamic packages, exhaust
blowing ways of working software systems. There was a lot
on the table. There was thirty thirty two scopes of work,
not all delivered. I'd say the majority delivered though, and
(10:50):
with real tangible performance that came with it. At the
same time, and what I love about this sport is
that you can demonstrate the world and to the individual
that are pouring their heart and soul into it, the
impact of their work is visible. Bannues for the businesses,
I've done the same with these next three weeks. So
we are challenging ourselves to again for Canada, bring more
(11:11):
performance again.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
And where do you think your land this season? Would
fifth be a result again?
Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yeah, as much as it sounds negative to just be
static and where you were, I think fifth would be resolved.
I think more important than the championship position, it's demonstrating
to the world that by the end of the season
will back up and fighting as we were at the
end of last year, because what there clearly demonstrates is
a turnaround and the ability to add performance in a
competitive way to the car.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Just for the non racing fan, how do you how
do you actually do that. I mean, how did you
spend those five weeks between Suzuka and Miami. What was
your day like, what was your team's day, like, what
was everyone doing? How did the orchestra come together?
Speaker 2 (11:53):
So very different with Formula One to pretty much every
other racing series in the world is that it's a
prototype game. So the car that we bringed every race
we aimed to bring performance, aerodynamic components, for ecademics, components, suspension,
we can change the car, and we do change the car.
So a new car this year is tens of thousands components.
(12:15):
Maybe about fifty thousand components is what constitutes the car
that went to Melbourne. Like, it's a very large number,
all designed in house, not necessarily all produced in house,
and we aim to bring to a race normally maybe
one hundred two hundred new bits. What we did with
Miami is were way bigger on that number. So there
was a new floor which is aerodynamic performance, new bodywork
(12:36):
which is aerodynamic performance, new front wing modifications, aerodynamic performance,
exhaust blowing at the back, aerodomic performance, a new way
of operating the power unit, which is just basically power
on track and delivery of electrical energy. And another way
of optimizing as well that was brought to Miami. We
also bought new risk suspension that allowed us to run
the car in a slightly different way that we did perform,
(12:58):
bring the balance window together at the same time, and
a different way of balancing on rear suspension. So all
of those components I've listed. There's quite a few more
projects behind the scenes, but all of those are the
big ticket items that each of them deliver quite large
amounts of performance when you cumulet them together. And what
you see is it's a relative game. It doesn't matter
if we bring I'm going to make a number up
two tents of performance. If everyone else brings two tents
(13:20):
of performance, you do not move forward. You need to
bring whatever everyone else is bringing plus two or three
tenths effectively. And that's the relative game that I enjoy
in all of this, and now that game continues for
the rest of the year. We also brought weight saving.
I should have said that, and that's a complex one
to bring. It doesn't sound complex, but we're a little
bit heavy to start the year. We have performance. Weight
(13:41):
is just simple physics. Formula F equals MA, so effectively
mass times acceleration. It is a known value. It's really predictable.
It's just physics. Take mass out, you go faster up
to the minimum limit, and we have work to do there.
But in Miami, well done to the team a really
good job in bringing that out the car as well.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
This experience, I know you're still in the middle of it,
but it changed your leadership philosophy at or like how
do you calibrate the appropriate amount of stress to bring
to an organization? Like how do you And you look
around the room. You've clearly got the belief of everyone
who works for them with you, but also you don't
want to feel so much pressure they start to make mistakes,
but you need to get them right to the line,
(14:20):
like how do you and do you have mentors or advisors?
Like how do you conceive of that?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
So an interesting conversation that was in this very room.
I'm in the border at the moment, I had with
one other team. It was a good conversation and their
words were, we were busy before, and you added a
load that brought us to right to the brink, which
I assume was your goal. You're like, yep, and what
I'm interested in is knowing when you are that brink
and when you're over, because to your point, there's no
(14:46):
point pushing ourselves to the point where we're just actually
throwing away performance through mistakes. I like the concept of
aim high and fail if you have to tweet that goal,
it's very simil's the first start of the conversation that
we had that failure were need to success in my experience,
but it will lead you to push yourself harder than
you believed you could achieve as well. At the same time,
(15:06):
and the answer to it is data and metrics. Very boring.
I'm a very boring person. I wrap everything with metrics
datas and that was a large change we had. Every
one of these projects had a wrap around to it
where you can see how much resource it needed, what
resource it was, how we're delivering against it. And it
allows you to stress the business and understand what's delivering
and what's not delivering and if it's not delivering, is
it a resource constraint, let's go and see if we
(15:28):
can fix it. The next is you need to have
a relationship in the business. So I was very much
walking around speaking to everyone I could speak to you
to understand where their stress pinch points are how they're
feeling about things, and you get a really good feeling
from that to understand where you are and where you're
pushing and how much more you have to give. I
have no doubt that there was nothing more to give
(15:48):
in these five weeks. That was it. That was all
we could bring across the business. Coaching. First of all,
leadership to in and around me is not one individual.
That's not the game anymore. Is about all of you
working together. And what I mean by that is it's
one thousand, two hundred people all working in exactly the
same direction of travel. The next is it's therefore about
(16:09):
leadership team that pull yourself together in those difficult times.
I also have a coach, fantastic ex Special Forces, so
he whips my backside into shape and pretty blunt on
telling me when I'm an idiot and when I'm not.
But I enjoy working with him at the same time
because frankly, I'm not a polished finished article. None of
us are, and I want to keep improving myself to
(16:31):
get more out of myself and more out of the company.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
All the way through, I'll ask you more about the
data and how you measure it. And how you track
and how you respond to it. But just before that,
I also want to talk about culture, because you said
something very interesting about the Williams that you entered as
team principal. You said it was surviving for many years.
And survival does some strange things to you. You become
isolated from what you're doing, fearful of changing too far
(16:56):
outside the boundaries of what you're used to. How do
you go about changing that culture?
Speaker 2 (17:00):
So, first of all, survival can happen for a number
of reasons. You don't have enough finances that your hand
to mouth on anything can be finances, it can be parts,
it can be ways of working, It can be fear
that drives it as well. So you have to approach
each of those problems with the relevant tools to fix them.
Step one of all of it is you add a
(17:21):
healthy slurp of headcount that allows you to get your
head above water a little bit. There was just an
amount of resource that was frankly just lacking. So you
put the resource in place enough that people's heads above grounds.
They're not now just treading water, but they are able
to have some thinking space. And with that thinking space
you use it to then really talk about where the
optimizations can have the biggest differences. Now here's an eternal
(17:44):
problem that all businesses will fall into if you locally optimize,
and we did in a few areas, but you locally
optimize your break somewhere else. The facts behind it is,
it's not about one part of the business, it's the
whole structure of the business that's important. At that stage.
Before you get there, you need to bring a vision
to everyone of what the future can look like. And
what I often use is tools of you sometimes don't
(18:07):
feel you're moving forward, Think back six months ago, and
I'll give you real world examples of what we were
doing six months ago that we are not doing any
more today. And I'll think forward six months in the
future and think to what state you want that to
be in that's a realistic state, and go chase it.
In other words, all too often, when you're caught in
the moment, you don't realize the positivity that's changed in
(18:28):
and around you. And there's plenty. There's plenty to bank
yourself on and it gives you confidence in the direction
of travel we're going into. Next, I do an email
that contains a brilliant individual from our organization and send
o out once a week effectively, and it highlights their
traits and what they've brought to the business. And typically,
if I can find someone that's actually failed, they've tried
(18:48):
their base, they've been innovating, they're on the brink of
boundary of innovation, and as a result, you failed, and
they've used that to learn and be better. All the
better but effectively reinforce positive tendencies through those mechanisms. I
have really enjoyable lunches that take place again in this
very room where I'll bring individuals from the team from
all different areas purpose that you always mixed up with,
(19:09):
all different areas that have a story to tell on
what has changed. So you propagate the fact that around
the business, I will support all of you. I will
have your back whatever happens, as long as what you're
doing is pushing the boundaries of innovation. And if you
fail on the journey, no problem. If we fail in
what's called a constant state, so it's a repeatable task
that we just haven't had due diligence or followed a
(19:30):
procedure that's different, that is a problem. That is just
normal failure. But if we're doing something that is bringing
the team forward and is true innovation. You will fail
on that journey and I'll be by.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Your side after the break. Why James thinks Formula one
is actually behind the curve on AI? Stay with us.
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podcast episode description box. What about the technology base is
A what is the technology base? And B what does
(21:07):
it mean to rebuild it?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
So that this is not going to sound like an advantage,
but it is. We didn't have much here to begin with,
and what that means is there's no risk of breaking it.
There's nothing to particularly break in a bad way. Now
in general ways, we're a weird business, but I enjoy
this business for this reason. We are a design business,
so we design product. We then produce the product in
(21:32):
the business as well, say, most of it's done here,
some of its timeousours, and then we operate and use
the product. And that's very odd. Most businesses, you perhaps
just design it, or maybe you design and produce, but
you definitely don't design, producer, and operate. And that's what
we are. And so we're sort of this very complete
stack from top to bottom, and that makes us quite unique.
In the world. As a result of it, the technologies
(21:54):
you need for those different areas are different. So within
manufacturing you need a site called ERP PLM, so you
need ways of Basically, if you imagine a race car,
the race car is made up of fifty thousand components
and each of those components can have sub components. Effectively,
it can be a bolt to washer. You need to
be able to break down the whole car to see
every single component that goes into it. Because every car
(22:15):
that we bring to a race is different. I've already
mentioned the upgrades we've pound the car, but we set
the car up differently as well, So.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
You need to drive it or for each race or
both both effectively.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
So you need a system of being able to keep
on top of all of the thousands of different parts
that you need, what builds into it. Have you gone
out off spares the track? And that's what effectively parts tracking, ERP,
P and M systems allow you to structure properly. Abound
the scenes. You need design software, which is what our
designers use at the same time, and ways of working
with them that the information is freely available to everyone
(22:46):
at the same time. In aerodynamics, you need competitional fluid
dynamics software that allows you to do wind tunnel testing,
a big big fan switching on and blowing on a
physical object, and theoretical world simulation world to simulate. At
the same time, you need software to be able to
analyze data that's being spat out for your simulator because
that's working nearly twenty four hours a day, or your
(23:07):
simulation tools that's definitely working twenty four hours a day,
or the track. So we have data in tons, but
bring it together and having the ability to view it
in the useful way for human beings is a core
part of some of the software that we're using. The
next part of it is this we are, as I said,
we're data rich, but we're not big data. That's different
(23:27):
big data in supermarkets doing billions of transactions. Yeah, we
have a lot of data coming off the car, but
every lap we do is almost different to last. And
so you need to father systems that allow you to interpret
what you can and can't use as a carryover to that.
And this is not just formula one. Now we're talking
about AI is making a tangible difference, and it does
not matter whether I'm talking about legal, human resources, designers trackside.
(23:51):
All of them have basic remedia tasks. AI frankly can
do a better job better yea faster and more accurate.
All of them have environments where I don't want human
beings doing the sludge slow part of the job. I
want to give that to someone else, so that that
actually we use human beings in an elevated way as
a result of it, and we will always be a
(24:12):
human technology sport. We have human drivers, human pick with
that go with that, human engineers that go with at
the same time, but we want to supplement them in
tools and systems that make their job easier and easier.
So that's again I haven't described anything that's actually Formula
one specific. That's all companies in the world that are
probably thinking that way, but in our world and especially
(24:33):
at Williams when bracing it very fast.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
But there is something unique about Formula one in terms
of the human machine interaction we spoke about at the beginning,
and in terms of what you alluded to that week
by week, race by race, the world gets to see
how you're doing, So talk about how you I mean,
you've got this thinking partnership with Anthropic and with Claude
what does that mean Beyond a logo on the car,
(24:59):
how do you actually with Claude?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
So there were no every part that we have that
includes a propic, Claude, that includes a Lassion, excludes Brillio,
that includes Aria, every single one. I've only mentioned the
tech set to ones. But they bring real tangible change
to how we operate as a business, and that is
something incredibly important for me. I'm not interested stickers in
the car, by the way, nor are they. What I'm
(25:23):
interested in is be with us on our journey and
help us change. In the case of Aria and Brideo
for example, what they bring is governance and structure for
how to use AI in the correct and safe way,
and almost Navy seal type individuals that will come in
and help us exploit AI to the best ability. By
the way that can be with Claude or otherwise. I
may sound really strange and bullying, but think about it
(25:45):
this way. If you leave urgentic systems completely unstructured with
your business, they will damage it if you do not
know what you're doing. So there is structure that's required.
Next claud what Claude is, It's embedded throughout the whole
business and different usage depending on where we are. What
I'm definitely seeing from it is take legal much quicker
turn around on what we're doing with any constructural agreements.
(26:06):
That that's simple. I think that's sort of described only
business in the world. But here's what's exciting within design.
All of a sudden, you're not constrained with the ideas
in your head. You're constrained with you using a tool
to allow you to flow a lot more freely. What
it's doing, in other words, is allowing for innovation with
tools that can expand your mindset and knowledge. And that
is the thinking part of it. If we really blunt.
(26:27):
There's two elements to claude. One is you can simplify
tasks that previously took you an hour typical speed up
that Lord will talk about three x my experiences we're
seeing ten x. And that gives you thinking time because
that's what human beings are much better at. Actually, what
are these regulations? How do we change them? How do
we go here further and then use tools to expand
that knowledge out And it's doing that in spades at
(26:50):
lastiam different tool, but we are working so much better
together as a result of it. So an example of
that is every time we run the car or a
machine downstairs, or way of working, we get something wrong.
And if you track that and create a fault and
then associate it with a human being that has accountability
and responsibility to fix it, we talk about it, you
document it, and you work with it. Now, if you
(27:11):
ought to make your data flows, all the data goes
in there at the same time, which is what we've done.
You're now in a much better way of working where
you're not going to fix all ten thousand problems a weekend,
but you will fix your core ones, which will move
the business forward with an accountable mechanism. Now to follow
it through again, it's data. Now we're in the infancy.
I really do mean this. There are companies out there
(27:32):
that are better than us at AI. There's no doubt
about it in my mind.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
In fact, you've said that the formula one as a
whole is behind the curve on AI, which I found
quite surprising.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yes, I'm confident we are.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
But why every team is harnessing simulation to your point,
is harnessing optimizers, you know AI Drougan optimization. Why do
you think you're behind the curve as a sport.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
So don't just mean the sport. I mean relative to
other companies in the world. I don't mean relative to
all companies. I suspect there are companies that have no
idea what AI is, and having even moved in that.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Direction of trouble.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
I suspect there are companies that use GPT to make
their life or CLAUD to make their life better by
asking questions. That's not what I would consider AI. But
that's about the level that some Formula one teams are today.
Why we're incredibly domain specific. What we do is only
done by ten other teams in the world. There's no
one else that works on an engineering life cycle of
(28:25):
five weeks. I want these ideas and I want them
at the track. That doesn't mean we can't make it
better with AI, but it does mean you can't replace
that with skilled human beings. Some repeatable tasks are more
set up for agentic flows to make a difference. Some
of it's in legal HR finance being completely blunt, which
is where you see speed up because they are repeatable
(28:45):
tasks that you can actually wrap system and process around.
We're asking human beings to read a set of rules
and come up with innovative ways of designing and producing
those products very quickly, and it's less set up. For
that reason, if you said, I mean it's not repeatable.
Every day they're doing different job or a different way
of working. That doesn't mean there's things we can't do
to make it better, which is what I've described, But
(29:06):
I also think that means that we've been a little
bit behind the curve on it because it is such
a specialist. To me. The next part is this, we're
flat out the whole time, and when you're flat out
the whole time, all too often you don't take a
moment to think about what you're doing and think whether
there's a better way of doing it. And I think
a part of it is just that we are so
driven to bring twenty milliseconds to the next race that
(29:30):
we may not be thinking about how to bring performance
in two years time through different structures and ways of working.
So there's a little bit of both of those together,
but it's more based on my experience of some companies.
I spend a bit of time with Deeplind for examples
on Google spin off, and that's incredible innovation right at
the front line of where we are and formerly one
isn't there and may not be there for quite a
few years. But that's more what I meant by it.
(29:52):
There's other companies out there that absolutely the way. I
don't think we're the worst by the way. I think
there's other companies worse than we are, just don't think
we're pushing the boundaries of it.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
We talked a lot about human machine interaction at its best,
how Formula one is almost a symphonic articulation of that.
But it seems like this season the humans don't like
the machine, or at least they don't like the power
the power unit, and this has become I mean, it's
amazing how Formula one has developed the sport because it
has become like mainstream news and every publication as a
(30:22):
headline in The Guardian, get rid of the Battery F one,
Under increasing pressure to make more changes to engine rules,
all three journal Formula one went green. It's driving everyone crazy.
I mean, this is like, you know, a big drama
about an engine, which is kind of amazing. But what's
your take.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
My take is this, I don't think we've got all
the changes right across the roser. But what I like
as a sport is we all got together over these
last five weeks and we made a series of changes
adds up to about fifteen to twenty thirty significant changes
when you put them together. And I think in Miami
the racing was fantastic. It really was a good show.
(31:00):
My point behind that is we are trying to make
some quite significant rule changes along the way. I don't
think the product we had in Shanghai or Melbourne was bad.
I enjoyed sitting back and watching the two Ferraris just
race each other against the Mercedes in Shanghai, for example,
And I was in the race and I should have
my focus elsewhere. So we have to acknowledge did we
get it all right?
Speaker 1 (31:19):
No?
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I wasn't expecting us to. You're making a lot of changes.
Did we then do the right thing by coming together
and make changes that are net post of the sport? Yes?
And what I like is even tomorrow we have a
meeting with the FIA from the one all the teams
post Miami to talk about it and go did we
do enough? What else should we be changing? What's our
feeling on this one? And a timeline that is one year,
(31:41):
three years, five years. So my message behind all of
this is this is what we still have a great
sport to watch, I believe. So. I watched the Miami
when I was there, and it was nice to score
ninth and tenth, but it was a good race to watch.
So I think we've addressed and fixed most of those issues.
Will it be perfect the rest of the year. I
think there's enough discussions going on now to make sure
(32:02):
that we cover that off and for our future state.
There's already been another of news stories out there, but
I think we're open minded enough to realize that sport
has to keep evolving and changing as all sports should
as the result of it. But I hope that that
notes behind us now. My personal opinion is I think
we're through the worst of it.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
The gun to your head, get rid of the battery
or keep it?
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Nope, I would keep it. I think there's a road
relevancy to it. I just think the margins the ratios
are slightly wrong, which is what we tuned in Miami.
I think even in future years, you have someone that battery.
And to explain why I joined this sport for two reasons. One,
I love the elite competitive nature of it too. I
like making real world difference with what we're doing. So
(32:46):
what have we done so far this year, well across
the last twenty years. Trash control abs, active, suspensioned, active era.
That's all technology is developing form the one that you
would have had in your car today. Maybe not active
error for a lot of them, have it on my
car downstairs, but not all do. I like the fact
that we're on synthetic fuel because that is basically a
game changer for the world. Electrication probably won't be the
(33:07):
solution for a while, but it gives us twenty thirty
years to figure out what is the right solution in
the right way. And that might be synthetic all the way,
might not be. It doesn't matter. It's there. And again,
road relevancy battery technology. There is an amount of energy
that we're losing while breaking and doing other functions, and
actually a small battery makes some difference on that one.
So it's road relevant. And I think that technology that
(33:28):
we're developing will be something that defines how we use
road cars for the next twenty years. So batteries still
have a place. I think they still have a place
in the next rule set in twenty thirty one. I
think we got the balances slightly out of whack, corrected
as we go through this journey.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Final question for you, James. We're talking in tech world,
as you know about the power law, the idea that
basically a few giants monopolize resources and returns. It's also
something we observe in other sports, in Premier League football
or you know, we talked earlier that fifth was a
great result last season. Actually it would be a decent
(34:05):
result this season, provided that it's a fifth while delivering
on all the changes you're making to how the team
operates and does business. But what would it take to
get to break to disrupt the power law in the
way in a sense that the calendid.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
So it's a good question. So the one with mclowen
is if you look at the average position across five years,
it's actually always been part of the top four. They
just had a few years where they fell back to it,
which is important to note. And if you do the
same work with Williams. Unfortunately we were further behind than that.
So it's a bigger trajectory. We often call it the
biggest transformation at sport. That's the reason why I call it.
(34:40):
From where we were, this is the biggest transformation, however,
already to move the team significantly from pretty much the
back to the top of the midfield should show everyone
that the change is real and tangible. To break into
the top four, in my experience, top three is exponentially
harder than what we've just done. But the real investments
that we're doing behind the scenes haven't all kicked in
(35:01):
yet and won't kick in for a while. So we
have we'll announce it in over the forthcoming months. But
some really great people that have joined the phrase. So
part of it is people. Part of it is systematic investment.
We've been investing tens of millions every year in new
facilities and new ways of working. There not I've been
running yet, but it will change what you're doing. The
next is I want us to be defined by technology.
(35:23):
I don't want to do things in the same way
we've done elsewhere for ten years. I want to be
a disruptor in that regard. Now that has risk. Weich
where we spoke about we can get it wrong as
well at the same time, but I suspect the bets
and a few areas will pay off, and a few
areas won't be quite up to where it needs to
be where we need to rethink it. But that allows
us a differentiation that doesn't happen in most of the places.
(35:43):
There's a reason why if you look at not now
because I'm not wearing it, but our shirt at racing
in the car, we have as many partners as we
do that are in that space. It's real, it's tangible.
It's because I believe that is the way to differentiate ourselves.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
James Philms, thank you, thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Thanks as.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
For text FIM's volos and this episode was produced by
Eliza Dennis and Melissa Slaughter. Executive produced by me Julian
Nutter and Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope and Katrian Novell for
iHeart Podcasts. Paul Bowman engineered this episode, Jack Insley mixed it,
and Kyle Murdoch wrote our theme song. A special thanks
to Nina Richards, Abby Ridsteel Smith, Adam Chapman, and the
(36:29):
Williams F One team.
TechStuff News
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Karah Preiss
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