Albon: Vowles' culture shift ended ‘doom and gloom’ at Williams

Williams’ Formula 1 resurgence this season has not just been about results on track — it’s been about an entire culture shift.

And according to Alex Albon, team principal James Vowles deserves the bulk of the credit for turning the Grove-based squad into a place brimming with energy rather than weighed down by despair.

Now sitting pretty in fifth place in the 2025 Constructors’ Championship, Williams is basking in its strongest season in years, and Albon’s enthusiasm tells the story of a team reborn.

For the Anglo-Thai racer, who joined Williams in 2022, the contrast between then and now couldn’t be sharper.

From Gloom to Growth

“The biggest thing is the culture of the team,” Albon said in an interview with Dutch website RacingNews365.

“You walk into Grove, it looks the same, but you go inside and it feels different. So, when I think about the biggest difference, it’s purely when I remember my first time at Williams.

“Going to the factory, no one was very confident, people were talking badly about themselves, which is never a good sign.

“Possibly a bit stuck in their old ways, and just a bit doom and gloom, really.”

The team, once mired in self-doubt, has become a rejuvenated unit under the very competent and diligent leadership of its team principal.

Vowles’ Open Approach

Albon points to Vowles’ management style as the spark that has rekindled morale and ambition within the team.

“So you get this feeling – he talks about this a lot – of breaking everything down and seeing how it builds back up,” he explained.

“So there’s a freedom and a kind of an openness to everything that we go about our racing, there’s no ego involved.

“And the feedback and the work that we do as drivers really gets taken on, and there’s just this energy to be better.

“So I think that culture definitely wasn’t there when I first joined. And now it’s great because you have, I won’t call it a young team, but it’s been rejuvenated in terms of it’s… just, it’s energy, it’s a really exciting place to be.”

• Read also: Albon hails best season yet in F1 – Vowles agrees

With Albon and Carlos Sainz consistently scoring points, the transformation at Williams is becoming one of F1’s standout stories of 2025.

For the 29-year-old, the results are proof that the “doom and gloom” has finally been replaced by belief — and by a team culture that is once again pointing firmly toward the future.

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