Mercedes Formula 1 team chief Toto Wolff sent a gift bag to Williams team principal James Vowles after Carlos Sainz secured the Grove outfit’s first podium under Vowles’s leadership at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
The Spanish driver crossed the line in third behind race winner Max Verstappen and second-placed George Russell. While he has four other grand prix wins to his name, Sainz claimed it was the “best podium in my career.”
To mark the milestone, Wolff gifted Vowles some champagne alongside some other gifts with a note on the gift bag, which read, “Lucky Ba***rd! Congrats on your first podium as a TP.”
Russell also congratulated his former team after the race. “Firstly, congrats to Carlos and Williams. An amazing result for them.”
Vowles joined Williams as team principal at the start of 2023 after a 13-year stint at Mercedes. During his time at the Brackley outfit, he worked closely with Wolff, as chief strategist and then motorsport strategy director from 2019.
The Briton discussed the advice and mentorship he received from Wolff during an appearance on the High Performance podcast in 2024.
“I think he said ‘Don’t be s**t’ was his advice! Which I’m trying to do!” he said.
James Vowles, Team Principal of Williams celebrates with his team
Photo by: Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images
“Other than that, he knows that I’ve been forming for this for quite a while, so there was little he could provide for me above it.”
He added, “Toto was kind enough with his time to give me as much experience as he could, he knew where he was forming me towards.
“It doesn’t mean that I had a job within Mercedes to be team principal there, but he provided me his time and knowledge and experience and more responsibilities. That started happening, so simulator drivers, then race drivers, start to come beneath me and I started working with our Formula E outfit, GT3 team, elements of the cost cap and other bits. I just kept pulling it in.
“Of course, you can’t do it all at once, so what I did was built a team that did all the strategy bits for me so I could focus on the growth. Once you’ve based yourself out of engineering and focused on how the company runs, you have a better idea of how to step into this role.”
Reacting to Sainz’s podium around the streets of Baku, Vowles explained to Sky Sports F1 that it was an “exceptional drive by him. I mean, it’s really lap after lap. He just built the pace.
“We knew Merc was quick, but well done to him. He didn’t put a foot wrong all weekend.”